AB 1336: California Workforce Development Board.

Under existing law, the California Workforce Development Board is the body responsible for assisting the Governor in the development, oversight, and continuous improvement of Californias workforce investment system and the alignment of the education and workforce investment systems to the needs of the 21st century economy and workforce. Existing law prescribes specific tasks with which the board assists the Governor, including the development and updating of comprehensive state performance accountability measures, including state-adjusted levels of performance, to assess the effectiveness of the core programs in the state as required under specific federal law. As part of that task, the board is required to develop a workforce metrics dashboard, to be updated annually, that measures the states human capital investments in workforce development to better understand the collective impact of these investments on the labor market. The dashboard is required to be produced using existing available data and resources that are currently collected and accessible to state agencies. Existing law requires the dashboard, among other things, to measure the performance of specific workforce programs.

This bill would require the board to determine the approach for measuring labor market impacts, provided that, to the extent feasible, the board uses statistically rigorous methodologies to estimate, assess, and isolate the impact of programs on participant outcomes. The bill would modify the requirement that the workforce metrics dashboard be produced using existing available data and resources that are currently collected and accessible to state agencies, to require that it be done to the extent feasible. The bill would additionally require the dashboard to measure the performance of workforce programs included in the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014.

Existing law requires the workforce metrics dashboard, among other things, to provide a status report on credential attainment, training completion, degree attainment, and participant earnings from workforce education and training programs. Existing law authorizes the State Department of Education to collect the social security numbers of adults participating in adult education programs so that accurate participation in those programs can be represented in the report. Existing law requires the State Department of Education to keep this information confidential, with the exception of authorizing the State Department of Education to share this information, unless prohibited by federal law, with the Employment Development Department, which is required to keep the information confidential and use it only to track the labor market outcomes of program participants in compliance with all applicable state and federal laws and mandates. Existing law requires specified participating workforce programs to provide participant data in a standardized format to the Employment Development Department. Existing law requires the Employment Development Department to aggregate data provided by participating workforce programs and to report the data, organized as prescribed, to the board to assist the board in producing the dashboard.

This bill would expand the authorized recipients of that confidential information to include the board or the boards designee. The bill also would expand the use of the confidential information to include using it to track, for program participants, credential attainment, training completion, degree attainment, and participant earnings from workforce education and training programs. The bill would require participating workforce programs, including but not limited to, specified programs, to provide participant data in a standardized format to the Employment Development Department, the board, or the boards designee. The bill also would require the board or the boards designee to aggregate and report data as described above. The bill would require the board to ensure that a designee has the technical and operational capability of meeting appropriate privacy and security requirements.