By Megan Cardiff
July 4, 2011

City workforce directors from across the nation gathered in Baltimore June 17-18 for The U.S. Conference of Mayors Workforce Development Council (WDC) Annual Meeting, held in conjunction with the 78th Annual Conference of Mayors Meeting. WDC President, CEO of Capital Workforce Partners in Hartford, Tom Phillips presided over the session, which focused on job creation, Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reauthorization, and the unemployment crisis.

With the unemployment rate stagnant and funding cuts looming for FY12, job creation is becoming increasingly more pertinent to mayors and cities in the United States. At the Baltimore meeting, WDC members discussed the necessity of Congress funding job creating programs, and heard from keynote speaker Congressman Elijah Cummings (MD) on the impact summer youth employment has on young people and the importance of jobs to a community. “We cannot allow folks to get to 70 years old talking about what they could have been — I’m a witness of what education can do; I’m a witness of what training can do; I’m a witness of what a supportive family can do — and let me tell you, a lot of the times the missing piece is the supportive family,” stated Cummings. “Many times you are trying to teach what should have been taught by the family. There is no greater threat to our national security than our failure to properly educate our children.”

ilure to properly educate our children.”

WIA reauthorization is vital to spurring jobs in the country. Assistant Secretary of Labor Jane Oates spoke with WDC members about reauthorization and steps the Department of Labor is taking to enhance On-the-Job training programs as well as federal grant opportunities. “It is important for us to go into the FY12 budget cycle with WIA reauthorization backing” stated Assistant Secretary Oates.

The WDC Youth Committee is working with the Conference of Mayors DollarWI$E Youth Campaign to promote financial education initiatives through One-Stop Centers. Members of DollarWI$E presented Baltimore Host Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake with a check for $4,000 at the meeting. Director of the Baltimore Office of Employment Development Karen Sitnick spoke to the group about ways in which the city is promoting financial education among its young people through its One-Stops.

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Administration for Children and Families division at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Mark Greenberg spoke about integrating Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and WIA into a single workforce system and increasing state and local capacity for cross'systems innovation. He discussed the importance of universal services being responsive to the needs of low-income families and how far too often many localities are severed from the local workforce system. “When individuals are in need of help they may face a complex set of structures and have multiple doors that lead to multiple services instead of just one door,” he said.

WDC members also heard from Gay Gilbert, Administrator of the Office of Unemployment Insurance (UI) for the Department of Labor, and Joe Carbone, President of The Workplace, Inc., regarding the crisis of the 99ers and Unemployment Insurance extensions. As of May 2011, there are 13.9 million unemployed in the U.S. and 7.4 million claimants for all UI programs. Two contributing factors to the high long-term unemployment rate is the mismatch of skills caused by the recession as well as the stigma of the long-term unemployed.