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Plan: Minnesota PYs 2016-2017
Combined Plan C

Section: WIOA State Plan Common Elements

Narrative: III. b. 1. B.

Published
Located in:

III. b. 1. B. Data-collection and Reporting Processes Used for All Programs and Activities, Including Those Present in One-stop Centers*.

Current Narrative:

Enhanced program performance data is a key element of DEED’s data–driven policy initiative to better address some of the most critical policy challenges. State law requires DEED to report performance outcomes for adult–oriented programs funded by the state’s Workforce Development Fund. Programs include those administered by Local Workforce Development Areas, awarded by a competitive grant process, and direct appropriations to non–governmental organizations. DEED must report the total number of people served in programs, the number who received training, the number who completed training and earned a credential, the number who found employment, and the average wages earned.

This workforce program report card provides uniformly defined measures, allowing outcomes to be viewed and compared across different program models and by additional layers of disaggregation, including participants’ educational level, race, gender and geography. The report card is available online and is updated quarterly.

In 2016, demographic context was to the report card identifying the percentage of program participants served who have a disability, are homeless at enrollment, as immigrants or refugees, and have a criminal record, among others characteristics. This shows the wide range of state–funded programs which serve adults with barriers to employment. The report card will be expanded this year to include federally–funded workforce training programs.

These performance measures have also been adopted by a collaborative group of state agency, non–profit and philanthropic groups in the Twin Cities region, led by MSPWin. This ensures continued movement towards consistent and transparent performance tracking across the entire workforce development and training system, regardless of funding source.

State law also requires a workforce program net impact analysis to include the impact of workforce services on individual employment, earnings and public benefit usage outcomes and a cost–benefit analysis for understanding the monetary impacts of workforce services from the participant and taxpayer points of view.

The 2015 report found that WIOA Adult and Dislocated Worker (both WIOA and state–funded) programs were responsible for large net impacts on annual earnings and employment likelihood during the two periods (2007–2008 and 2009–2010) examined. The next iteration of the report will provide updates on the original programs and expand the analysis to include DEED’s career pathways programs. This report is due to the Minnesota Legislature in January 2017.

In addition, performance data are helping to informing DEED’s work on a system–wide approach to addressing racial and occupational employment disparities. Data confirms racial and occupational employment disparities exist among participants in workforce development programs administered by DEED and targeted to low–income and recently laid–off adults. That’s particularly true among participants confronting such common barriers to employment as low educational attainment, criminal background, limited work experience, and limited English skills. While we can make tangible progress in serving people of color more intentionally and engaging with employers around how to successfully employ individuals with barriers, we must also find performance solutions to serving participants with barriers.

In addition to increasing the transparency of workforce development program performance across DEED, there is a continued emphasis on defining and documenting customer outcomes using a results–based accountability (RBA) framework, which measures:

  • How much we did
  • How well we did it
  • Whether anybody is better off

While transactional measures (customer counts, number of jobs posted) provide a quantitative way to show the reach of DEED’s programs, it’s the transformational measures (training in an in–demand occupation, consistent employment, wage levels that support a typical Minnesota family) that inform policy decisions. New efforts are underway in 2016 to assess our interactions with one–stop customers and employers using the results–based accountability framework.