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Workforce Investment Act: States and Local Areas Have Developed Strategies to Assess Performance, but Labor Could Do More to Help

GAO-04-657 Published: Jun 01, 2004. Publicly Released: Jun 01, 2004.
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Highlights

With rising federal deficits and greater competition for public resources, it is increasingly important for federal programs, such as the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) programs, to show results. This report examines (1) how useful WIA performance data are for gauging program performance; (2) what local areas are doing to manage their WIA performance and assess one-stops on a timely basis, and how states assist these efforts; and (3) the extent to which the Department of Labor is trying to improve WIA's performance measurement system and assess one-stop success.

Recommendations

Matter for Congressional Consideration

Matter Status Comments
Congress may wish to consider requiring that information be collected and reported on all WIA participants, including those who only receive self-service and informational services, so that Congress may have a better understanding of the full reach of WIA and the one-stop system.
Closed – Implemented
As of September 2005, Congress has considered this issue. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee has forwarded a bill to the floor that would reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act (S. 1021). The bill contains the requirement that states in their annual reports give the number of participants served under each level of service, including self-service only.

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Labor To compensate for the impact of changes in the economy and to give states and local areas an equal opportunity to meet their performance levels, the Secretary of Labor should continue to allow the use of supplemental data for reporting outcomes, but develop more stringent guidance and monitoring of these data.
Closed – Implemented
Labor issued final guidance on the common measures with Training and Employment Guidance Letter No. 28-04 on April 15, 2004. This guidance authorizes states to continue using supplemental data for filling any gaps in the UI wage records.
Department of Labor To compensate for the impact of changes in the economy and to give states and local areas an equal opportunity to meet their performance levels, the Secretary of Labor should provide assistance to states and localities in developing and sharing promising practices on interim indicators for assessing WIA's performance.
Closed – Implemented
Labor has two efforts to facilitate sharing promising practices on WIA performance: (1) the Performance Enhancement Project that provides technical assistance and training to help states troubleshoot performance issues and identify ways to maximize performance, and (2) an online website (www.workforce3one.org) that allows states and local areas to share resources and best practices. There are currently 13 resources on the workforce3one website that address performance.
Department of Labor To compensate for the impact of changes in the economy and to give states and local areas an equal opportunity to meet their performance levels, the Secretary of Labor should develop an adjustment model or other systematic method to account for different populations and local economic conditions when negotiating performance levels.
Closed – Not Implemented
As of July 2008, Labor has not developed an adjustment model or systematic method for all states to use to account for the variations in populations served and economic conditions and does not intend to develop such a model because it believes that the current process is adequate for negotiating performance levels with states.
Department of Labor To comply with statutory requirements and to help federal, state, and local policy makers understand what services are most effective for improving employment-related outcomes, the Secretary of Labor should expedite efforts to design and implement an impact evaluation of WIA services.
Closed – Implemented
In November 2007, Labor began conducting a non-experimental impact evaluation of WIA programs using state administrative data, which is expected to be completed by 12/31/2008. In addition, as of July 2008, Labor is starting to conduct a multisite, randomized control group evaluation of WIA-funded programs.

Full Report

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Topics

Federal aid programsLabor legislationLocally administered programsProgram managementState-administered programsWorkfareProgram evaluationPerformance measuresData integritylocal relations