This bill (the One Door to Work Act) changes the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act to create a State innovation demonstration authority. It lets a State apply, on behalf of the whole State, a single local area, or a group of local areas, to combine its youth and adult/dislocated worker WIOA allotments into one five-year grant. The combined grant would be used for a demonstration project that tries new ways to help jobseekers and employers. During the demonstration, the Secretary may waive most statutory and regulatory requirements in subtitle A and subtitle B, with some required exceptions (for example: performance accountability and reporting, certain board membership rules, and priority of service).
The bill requires a third-party evaluator to be contracted within 180 days after the first demonstration is approved. The evaluation must run over the five-year project, compare participants to similarly situated nonparticipants and to outcomes under earlier waivers, include qualitative analysis of promising practices, and report results to two congressional committees no later than two years after the fifth year of each demonstration.
Demonstrations last five years and can be renewed for another five years if performance targets are met. The bill limits approvals to no more than eight Statewide demonstrations and no more than eight local-area/consortia demonstrations per five-year period, and it allows only one demonstration project per State. States must apply with a plan that describes activities, goals, expected performance outcomes for each year, consultations with employers and boards, and how services will be provided. The Secretary must approve or provide an initial disapproval explanation within 60 days of application; if the Secretary does not act, the application is deemed approved.
Approved projects must use grant funds only for the demonstration, limit administrative costs to no more than 10 percent of funds, give priority for services to veterans and eligible spouses, recipients of public assistance, low-income people, and those with basic skills needs, and serve at least as many participants as the State or local area served previously or as agreed with the Secretary. Projects must report participant outcomes each year and meet other reporting requirements. The bill sets rules for setting baseline and expected performance levels and applies sanctions starting in the third year if a project fails to meet agreed performance levels. For local-area or consortium demonstrations, the project’s results are excluded from the Statewide accountability measures and the State must negotiate new statewide performance agreements for non-demo areas.
No publicly available information on estimated federal costs. The bill does include one spending-related limit: projects may use not more than 10 percent of consolidated funds in a fiscal year for administrative costs.
No publicly available information.
No publicly available information.