2020-2023 WIOA State Plan open for public comment
The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) requires that the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) submit a State Plan every four years to the U.S. Department of Labor. While the State Plan largely serves as a compliance document for Minnesota’s federally funded workforce development programs through WIOA, this draft state plan also outlines the One Minnesota vision, mission and goals for our state’s workforce development activities. The State Plan is developed by state staff under the oversight of the Operations Committee of the Governor’s Workforce Development Board (GWDB) and must be approved by the full GWDB before it is submitted to the U.S. Department of Labor for review.
State Plan goals
Minnesota’s current operating WIOA State Plan was last revised in 2018 (as required by federal law on a bi-annual basis) to update the state’s very first four-year WIOA State Plan that was also submitted and approved by the U.S. Department of Labor for federal program years 2016-2019. This 2020 draft four-year plan builds on the work of the 2018 revised plan but includes updates in the analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the system, developments related to coordination and alignment efforts, program updates and an executive summary that provides an overview of the work ahead under the leadership of a new administration (pages 4-9).
The proposed 2020 WIOA State Plan's primary two goals for meeting the skilled workforce needs of our state are found on page 48 of the draft document. These proposed goals are based on goals previously established in the 2018 Revised Plan, which revised the 2016 goals to be inclusive of gender. In this draft plan, “age” has been added to the second goal. With this change, Minnesota’s draft 2020-2023 WIOA Plan proposes the following two primary goals in order to realize a stronger workforce development system:
- Reduce educational, skills training and employment disparities based on race, disability, gender or disconnected youth.
- Build employer-led industry sector partnerships that expand the talent pipeline to be inclusive of race, disability, gender and age to meet industry demands for a skilled workforce.
Public comment
If you would like to provide public comment on the Draft 2020-2023 WIOA State Plan, please share your comments on the State Plan draft via email to [email protected]. Please also be aware that a supplemental posting will be uploaded for public comment in February that will include small portions that could not be included at the time of this initial posting because data was not yet available.
Questions
If you have questions about the 2020-2023 WIOA State Plan or the public comment process, please contact Ben Baglio, Director of the Governor’s Workforce Development Board, at [email protected].