Located in:
- Program-Specific Requirements for Wagner-Peyser Program (Employment Services)
All Program-Specific Requirements provided for the WIOA core programs in this section must be addressed for either a Unified or Combined State Plan.
- e. Agricultural Outreach Plan (AOP). Each State agency must develop an AOP every four years as part of the Unified or Combined State Plan required under sections 102 or 103 of WIOA. The AOP must include an assessment of need. An assessment need describes the unique needs of farmworkers in the area based on past and projected agricultural and farmworker activity in the State. Such needs may include but are not limited to: employment, training, and housing.
- 4. Outreach Activities
The local offices outreach activities must be designed to meet the needs of MSFWs in the State and to locate and contact MSFWs who are not being reached through normal intake activities. Describe the State agency's proposed strategies for:
- 4. Outreach Activities
- e. Agricultural Outreach Plan (AOP). Each State agency must develop an AOP every four years as part of the Unified or Combined State Plan required under sections 102 or 103 of WIOA. The AOP must include an assessment of need. An assessment need describes the unique needs of farmworkers in the area based on past and projected agricultural and farmworker activity in the State. Such needs may include but are not limited to: employment, training, and housing.
e. 4. D. Providing State merit staff outreach workers professional development activities to ensure they are able to provide high quality services to both jobseekers and employers
Current Narrative:
Prior to 2018, Missouri’s personnel law, located in chapter 36 of the Missouri Revised Statutes, required that all employees of certain agencies, including the employees of the Office of Workforce Development, have merit status. In 2018, the Missouri legislature amended the state personnel law to remove merit status for all employees except those who are required to be merit by “federal law or regulations for grant-in-aid programs.” 36.030, RSMo. In its revised regulation at 20 CFR 652.215, the USDOL removed the requirement that labor exchange services be provided by State merit-staff and instead provides that W-P funded activities “can be provided through a variety of staffing models. They are not required to be provided by State merit-staff employees.”
Upon publication of this final rule, the Office of Workforce Development had to remove the merit status of all its employees to comply with State of Missouri law. In the State of Missouri, all employees are at-will except when required by federal law. 20 CFR 652.215 no longer requires that W-P funded staff be merit, as a result OWD had to remove the merit status at the earliest possible opportunity to comply with State of Missouri law.
Office of Workforce Development staff was notified June 14, 2021 followed by a detailed presentation on June 16, 2021. Formal letters to employees were then sent to their permanent addresses. Beginning on July 1, 2021, all remaining Missouri merit staff changed to at-will in the payroll system.
Missouri Job Center non-merit state staff are trained via webinars and in-person to offer the MSFWs equal access to a full range of employment services, and in providing these services, how to be sensitive to preferences, skills, and availability of agricultural job opportunities. In order to accomplish this, job center non-merit state staff must identify and serve farmworkers in an equitable manner. These interactive training webinars empower each job center to accomplish compliance in meeting regulations. Participants learn how to identify, conduct intake and serve the MSFWs. Additionally they are provided demographic and agricultural information for each local area. Trainings are completed on outreach throughout the state that require at least one local staff person to attend. This strategy increases local program knowledge and increases MSFW registrations for Missouri. It also provides information regarding a wide range of services to the farmworkers and agricultural employers. In addition State merit MSFW Outreach Workers staff may attend national training as available to learn best practices from other states and partners.