Legislature(1993 - 1994)
04/18/1994 01:00 PM House CRA
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SB 255 - STATE POLICY ON HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMT Number 032 SENATOR RANDY PHILLIPS testified on CSSB 255 saying, "Representative Jerry Sanders and I belong to the Alaska Job Training Council and basically, what this bill does is coordinates human resource development for the state government agencies and requires public officials' response for education training to coordinate their programs with the private sector... There's 22 members of this council. Mr. Sanders is the member from the House of Representatives and I'm the Senate member of that council and basically, we look at coordinating job opportunities and education for the people of Alaska." Representative Cynthia Toohey joined the committee at 1:10 p.m. REPRESENTATIVE JERRY SANDERS added, "I feel that coordination is very much needed because there's so many different programs going out there and there's no overall thing tying them all together so that they serve the public." SENATOR PHILLIPS said, "This bill does do it and there is an audit done every four years, a follow up on where we are, where we were and where we're going. (This is) Just basically a policy statement put in statutes asking the agencies and the private sector to work together for the betterment of everybody in the state." Number 081 REPRESENTATIVE CON BUNDE asked about the notations on the members' copies of CSSB 255. (A copy of this bill is one file.) SENATOR PHILLIPS said, "What it was, as you know, somebody always asks what's the difference between the different versions. What you see here is where the amendments were made and by whom, but not necessarily why." Number 120 DEBRA CALL, CHAIR, ALASKA JOB TRAINING COUNCIL, testified via teleconference saying, "I would like to testify in support of this Senate Bill 255. It's a piece of legislation that has been in development for at least three to five years and it concerns the development of a human resource policy for the state of Alaska. What we're trying to do is to coordinate a lot of the development in the state of Alaska's human resources and make them aware they are efficient and effective in meeting the needs of the private sector and the people of the state of Alaska. The policy development that is talked about in this piece of legislation is currently ongoing within national legislation and the fact that makes a lot of the programs work together, as opposed to meeting separate federal program guidelines. We're looking for more coordination and consistency in language and performance evaluations. So this is a policy statement that suits the needs of Alaska, as opposed to the needs of the federal government. And we're looking to customize the programs to meet the needs of Alaska and for economic development in the state. I also have testimony to read from Dave Reese, who is the manager of technical training, Alyeska Pipeline Services Company. And he is also a member of the Alaska Job Training Council...he lives in Eagle River... Number 157 MS. CALL read, "In regards to SB 255 which has already passed the Senate. It's a bill which provides the basis of coordinating human resource development policy for Alaska. The bill responds to private sector employers, labor groups and community-based organizations who see a need for increasing the coordination and cooperation of agencies dealing with education and employment in this state. As revenues decline and employment opportunities shift, the people of this state need to have a sound, systematic, support system for training unemployment. There's a need for more connections between agencies and educational institutions (to) be sure that the people can get training for new jobs, upgrades and current jobs, and enter or reenter the job market as it changes. With a vast number of programs offered across the various state agencies and schools without oversight and policy direction, there are many opportunities for redundancies, disconnects and misdirection. These functions can be costly and provide unnecessary barriers to people looking for help. Jobs are changing rapidly in Alaska, just as in the rest of the world. Few people in jobs today will be doing the same thing five to ten years from now. Even if they are in the same kind of work, technologies and equipment, regulations, and competitive markets will make it necessary to learn new skills, change employers and target new markets. If Alaska is going to remain in the hunt for a strong economy, we must have efficient, effective (indiscernible) for developing and retraining our workforce. As a private sector employee representative on the Alaska Job Training Council, this bill will help focus the Administration and legislature, on a need to have a coordinated human resource development opportunity. The accountability laid out in this bill makes it clear that agencies will collaborate and that the Governor will have a periodic report and guidance mechanism to ensure that coordination and human resource development is a key policy to economic development..." Number 208 VINCE BARRY, DIRECTOR, EDUCATION PROGRAM SUPPORT, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION said, "The Department of Education feels strongly that there has to be planning and coordination between all of the various departments and divisions including the university. What the department is suggesting, however, is that lines 23 to 25 (page 2) be struck. They read, `To plan, monitor, and coordinate the programs, systems, and activities identified in this section, the governor shall use the Alaska Job Training Council as the recognized state job training coordinating council.' There are several reasons for that, if you see the sentences that follow it seems to be saying pretty much the same thing, addressing the issue in the same way. If lacking the possibility of striking that sentence, we would like you to consider changing the word `shall' to `may' on line 24... The bill gives a tremendous authority with very little responsibility attached to it to the Alaska Job Training Council. The tasks could cost a tremendous amount of money in order to respond one way or another to whatever the recommendations are. The issue to me is that it's a policy issue so as soon as you...arrive at assigning, planning and monitoring and coordinating policies, then you have a program. This is a programmatic activity. And the programmatic activity, these ten departments and the university and business, labor, industry and government, professions, so on and so forth, should come together in a more organized way and that could possibly be carried out if the word is made by individuals from each of those institutions. Right at the moment, for instance, all of the institutions named are not represented on that council. To give you an example that these things do occur as we speak...just in my own division there's probably over 100 different activities that we undertake that we are involved with other departments and the university." He then provided examples of current programs implemented by the Department of Education (DOE) and other departments and concluded, "Again, the department favors this coordination. We'd like to have this type of coordination formalized and I think that if the Governor is given the option to say `may use,' it would go a long way to helping the concerns that the Department of Education has." REPRESENTATIVE CYNTHIA TOOHEY said, "I appreciate Goal #1, Objective #4, (found within backup information distributed by Senator Phillips.) I think that is an area that we very often forget and I think that it's very important that we focus on requiring women to be given the option of having nontraditional roles...the training is necessary." SENATOR PHILLIPS said, "Quite frankly...this is the first time I've heard of this complaint (from DOE) and the bill was assigned to four committees in the Senate and I know in my committee, C&RA...we had three hearings on it, this is the first time I've heard of this. I don't know what's going on. In this late date in the session, unless the members on the teleconference feel that this is an important amendment. I'd like to hear what they have to say about it, but this is something new to me." Number 310 MS. CALL said, "I have mentioned to a variety of people that, if we could keep the legislation as it is, we can work out the details before it goes for the Governor's signature, in the sense that, the gist of the bill is to develop a human resource policy for the state of Alaska and develop a report, to report to the Governor on areas where we could improve. That is my overriding focus, we need a policy for the state of Alaska. One of the things that I know that is a real issue with the Department of Education is the fact that they don't have representation on the council... We've gone so far as to say without authorization that you're ex- officio members of our council. The council is funded by Job Training Partnership money and they pretty much dictate what the percentage of representation will be on the council. So I am very supportive of the Department of Education. I continue to solicit their input and it will continue to be that way as long as I am chair. So I would prefer leaving the legislation as it is and have an open door policy with the Department of Education." Number 339 CHAIRMAN OLBERG said, "Speaking as chair, I would be reluctant to start amending this legislation at this point in the process because we are running up against some deadlines." MARY SHIELDS, GENERAL MANAGER, NORTHWEST TECHNICAL SERVICES, testified via teleconference in support of CSSB 255. She said, "We're trying to accomplish with this bill something that has been very important for quite a period of time and that's to develop a policy that will primarily enable. We want to enable the people that are receiving the services, we want to enable the people delivering the services and we want to specifically enable the people, like my firm, ...that are hiring those who have received and trained out of these services. ...to obtain the best results for all of us and for everyone involved is to have this kind of cooperative attitude, more or less an alliance...formed..." Number 379 REPRESENTATIVE SANDERS moved to pass CSSB 255 out of committee with individual recommendations. There were no objections.
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