Narrative: p. 3.

Kentucky is committed to gathering the collective data required under section 116 of WIOA for all the core partners. KYStats and state agencies will work with the state board to ensure required reports for the performance accountability are completed to the best of the state’s ability. An approach Kentucky is actively exploring would house all data required for these reports in the Kentucky Longitudinal Data System (KLDS). The priority is to identify and deploy a third—party, non—agency entity to receive, clean and report from multiple data sources in the short term and ultimately assist in the development of common reports when the common system is implemented.

Kentucky assesses the overall effectiveness of the workforce investment system in relation to the strategic vision and goals of the WorkSmart Kentucky and Economic Competitiveness plans, seeking integration of activities and information from all the core programs. The ultimate goal is to increase the long—term employment outcomes for individuals seeking services, especially those with barriers to employment, to improve services to employers and demonstrate continuous improvement. Kentucky will assess the effectiveness, physical and programmatic accessibility in accordance with Section 188 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq.), and continuous improvement of the career center.

Kentucky has a certification process in place to ensure that KCC offices are ready to serve all qualified persons in the regional and local areas as expected. The certification policy is fundamental to aligning programs, policies and activities in the workforce system. Workforce agencies and partners are engaged in this assessment and continuous high—quality improvements to ensure that all related activities are being coordinated in a way that allows partners to review relevant information and take action to improve the system.

KYStats works with all relevant state agencies to integrate data storage activities which, hitherto, were being carried out separately. This ensures that data about all persons seeking services from any of the core programs are captured and matched so as to avoid duplication of service delivery. Not only does this help track the workforce services provided, it also enables evaluation of those services — for example, the employment status of eligible training program completions several years out.

Storing all WIOA—related data in a common data warehouse will enhance data retrieval and analysis, which will help KCC to efficiently assess the quality of our workforce service providers. Kentucky will review data to track provider success in meeting the targets in the following areas:

learning gains;

entry into employment in required quarters;

obtaining a secondary credential and enrollment into post—secondary or training;

obtaining a secondary credential and gaining employment;

and gaining a post—secondary credential.

Having all core programs’ data integrated will enable service providers to conduct regular audits to determine which program service providers are challenged in meeting targets and in need of technical assistance beyond the standard leadership activities that are provided. Technical assistance will be targeted to the area of need; it will be individualized and focused.

KYStats and state agencies will continue to work with KWIB to ensure required reports for the performance accountability are completed to the best of the state’s ability.

Currently, in Kentucky the work continues to identify a plan for collecting, tracking, measuring and reporting data from the workforce partners. This requires substantial work on several levels prior to the development and implementation of a system to capture the data. Changes under WIOA have required significant modifications in the current manner that data is collected.  This is further complicated by the fact that theworkforce partners use different systems and tracking mechanisms.

The current Kentucky OVR VR Case Management System (CMS); a web-based system used to collect required data, enforce work flow rules, verify data accuracy, authorize and pay for consumer services, and produce a variety of monthly and real time reports; was implemented in October 2008. The system was designed to be fully accessible with particular attention to usability with screen reading technology - a goal that none of the “off the shelf” options for case management systems for vocational rehabilitation agencies could meet at the time.

With recent improvements in technology, several systems could meet the programmatic and accessibility needs of the agency. The current CMS system is approaching its useful life expectancy and upgrades to the current system as well as the purchase or licensing of other systems that would meet both the needs of the agency and those of common measure reporting. OVR is in process of procurement of a new system. OVR and the partners access to a Customer Relationship Management system  via the SalesForce application.

Regardless of the system that the Agencies choose to implement, innovations that are anticipated include: paperless cases, electronic signatures, improved reporting access, increased electronic communication and corroboration among Department partners, and system generated notifications and reminders to increase productivity. In the interim, the current system is being modified to meet the data collection requirements for common measures as well as the additional data elements required for RSA 911 quarterly reporting. The current system has allowed for us  to collect the necessary data and produce accurate reports prior to the due dates for Rehabilitation Services Administration and common measures reporting.

Once a baseline is determined and the relationship between services, partnerships, etc. and successful outcomes and measurable progress is analyzed, strategies will be developed to improve the performance outcomes.