News Home

A version of a bill passed by the House on Tuesday to reauthorize a program to train students for unfilled jobs could pass the Senate before the end of the year despite a tight calendar, according to lawmakers, advocates and lobbyists.

The House passed a bill (HR 5587) by a 405-5 margin, with all dissenting votes coming from Republicans. Lawmakers said the bill will help train workers for high-skilled jobs that employers have trouble filling in industries such as manufacturing.

The measure would update the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (PL 109-270), which was last reauthorized in 2006. The federal program helps fund state and locally developed training to prepare students for high-skilled jobs. Changes to the bill would give states and districts more control over their programs.

“For the first time in 10 years this legislation will compressively update the program, overhauling how the government invests in our workforce and strengthens America’s competitiveness through job skills training,” said Rep. Katherine M. Clark, D-Mass., one of the main co-sponsors of the bill. 

The legislation is expected to affect programs serving more than 11 million students training them for careers including advanced manufacturing, computer science and child care. 

A Senate version of the bill, which has yet to be introduced, could get a markup during the week of Sept. 19 by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, assuming the chamber doesn’t decide to recess at the end of this week, according to two people with knowledge of the committee's plans. One of the people said the Senate would not take up the House bill.

“If we don’t mark it up before the recess, we probably won’t do it this year,” one of the people said.

The committee has not announced any hearings or markups on the topics but is engaged in bipartisan discussions about the bill, said Margaret Atkinson, a spokeswoman for HELP Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

“Conversations are moving in a good direction,” she said. “The chairman hopes to act on legislation soon.”

If a bill is approved by the committee and makes it onto the Senate floor, it is not expected to meet with much opposition. Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Michael B. Enzi, R-Wyo., have been working on legislation since the start of the year. The House Education and the Workforce Committee unanimously approved its bill in July, 37-0.

“With so much bipartisan support for the bill in the House, I think they’d be hard-pressed not to do something this year,” said Sasha Pudelski, assistant director of policy and advocacy with the School Superintendents Association.

If the bill doesn’t pass this year, there’s potential for it to be resurrected in the next Congress. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who is often mentioned as a likely successor to current Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., would place the program’s reauthorization high on next year’s agenda if she leads the committee, according to spokeswoman Sheridan Watson.

The program would not lose its funding if the reauthorization measure is not passed, but it is in need of an update to help ensure that workers are being trained not just for high-skilled jobs but also for the jobs that companies in their area need filled, advocates say.

“We talk with employers and job creators from all over the country, and they cannot find the people they have qualified and trained to fill the position they have sitting open,” said Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., a main sponsor of the bill. “This reauthorization or transformation is designed to close that skills gap.”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said a lack of workers with requisite skills has contributed to “our country’s tepid economic growth,” and he said the bill would bolster the United States' workforce.

“Technological advances are changing the landscape of work,” the California Republican said in a written statement. “It is critical that educational opportunities are available to prepare our workforce to continue to lead in the global economy.”

Changes to the program would add an emphasis on local control and give more power to the states in formulating their plans and their accountability criteria, although the plans would still be subject to approval by the secretary of Education.

The legislation would encourage training programs to collaborate with area employers to get a better sense of what skills and training would be needed.

As the Perkins program provides training to students in high school as well as college, the update of the bill aligns standards with two other bills that recently passed: the overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (PL 114-95) and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (PL 113-128), which focuses on training workers.

The new bill would require a gradual increase in funding to $1.23 billion in fiscal 2022. It would cost $7.1 billion between fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2022, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

http://www.cq.com/doc/news-4952837?7