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WorkForceWV receives $6 million green grant for workforce training

25 January 2010

WorkForceWV has received a $6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to support the State’s efforts to provide green jobs education and training. The grant will support four major activities:

Green training for current, future and unemployed workers in building, construction, retrofitting, and installation occupations;
The development of a new community and technical college GREEN-UP certificate program, the new wind energy technology program at Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical College, and new water and wastewater treatment programs at Marshall Community and Technical College;
The development and implementation of community and technical college courses that teach basic and green technical skills in combination, as well as green entrepreneurship for those interested in starting green businesses; and
Professional development for career center, registered apprenticeship program and community and technical college faculty to assist them in incorporating green concepts and skills into classes and programs.

The West Virginia GREEN-UP Council, along with five regional teams, will coordinate grant activities.

DCT Advisors LLC is pleased to have been able to assist WorkForceWV in obtaining this grant and looks forward to working with WorkForceWV on initial project start-up and facilitation of GREEN-UP Council activities over the next several years.

Looking for high school speech and debate judges

22 January 2010

After a decade-long hiatus, Marshall University began hosting the John Marshall High School Speech and Debate Tournament again last year. This year’s tournament is 5-6 February, and Dennis Taylor will be coordinating debate. If you are interested in judging speech or debate, please contact him at 304.541.0332. MU tries to see that all volunteer judges are treated well.

Tune in tomorrow

18 January 2010

At the end of my last post, I asked a question that I said I would answer tomorrow. Tomorrow came and went as I became extremely busy with a work-related project. But here’s the answer to the question:

What major sector of the United States economy has seen costs rise more quickly than the health care sector – and by a wide margin?

Higher education, of course.

Why have higher education costs risen so quickly? Certain higher education officials would like to convince you that it’s because state appropriations have not kept pace with inflation. But that’s really only a small part of the explanation – and not even that if you factor in all the new federal and state funding coming through the back door in the form of merit- and need-based financial aid. The dirty little secret: The back door funding of rich and poor kids with financial aid has removed market forces from the fee-setting calculus. With almost no pressure to control prices, tuition costs – and thus the revenue institutions have to operate in real dollar terms – has increased exponentially. I’m oversimplifying a bit here, but this certainly is the case for West Virginia’s four-year higher education institutions over the last decade – and what the public higher education sector tries to hide using an inflation measure called the higher education price index. (It has a legitimate purpose, just not the purpose for which it is most frequently used.)

Were I less busy, I would connect the dots that support my contentions for you sooner, rather than later. But alas market forces require me to do real, paying work. When I return to posting on this blog (this coming weekend), I will share my thoughts about our newest higher education market force – the Governor, who’s saying “no” to tuition increases, as well as address the legislative auditor’s assessment of the appropriate number of four-year institutions, which I think may be wrong-headed. Plus I’ll flag three interesting news articles about subjects that I think may have a larger impact than people realize.

But alas it’s back to paying work.

Little Creek Ice Bowl: A Covenant House benefit

13 January 2010

For those who like the cold, and that certainly doesn’t include me, Covenant House is holding a benefit at Little Creek Park on Saturday, 13 February 2010, beginning at 9 AM (8:30 AM registration): the Little Creek Ice Bowl.

If you’re one of those people who has threatened serious harm to Punxsutawney Phil if he sees his shadow this year, my recommendation is that you deliver $20 and 10 canned food items to Covenant House in advance of the event – and stay warm. For the rest of you, I’ll see you at the Ice Bowl.

The state of the State of West Virginia

13 January 2010

This is the first year in many years when I have not spent the evening of the Governor’s State-of-the-State Address reviewing the Governor’s proposed budget or seeing if the Governor said anything of import about education. My hunch is that I did not miss a whole lot – and I’ll catch up on that news soon enough.

State government is going through a period of budget cuts. Been there, done that. Good administrators anticipate budget cuts by leaving positions vacant. Throughout the early part of the last decade, I was always able to keep one year ahead of budget cuts by leaving positions vacant strategically.
With little new money (it doesn’t matter how large the cuts, someone somewhere will get some new money), legislators will spend 60 days fighting over issues of marginal import. Smart agency heads will find unimportant things to keep them busy so they don’t cause too much harm.
The Governor’s lame-duck status will become even more apparent than it already is. A governor’s primary power is budgetary, and budget cuts hit a governor particularly hard politically.
The major topic of discussion may be other post-employment benefits (OPEB). The state made a lot of promises to employees it will have a hard time keeping. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your perspective), governmental accounting standards now expect the state to book, and ideally create a reserve to cover, this shockingly large future liability. Do realize that the book value of OPEB liabilities is quite speculative because we really don’t know the extent to which health care costs will rise. (State retirees’ health coverage is OPEB). If this nation could reign in rising health care costs, OPEB would be a smaller problem for state government. So the decisions in Washington, DC over the coming weeks and months probably will be just as, if not more, important than the decisions in Charleston.

A question for public policy wonks: What major sector of the United States economy has seen costs rise more quickly than the health care sector – and by a wide margin? Tune in tomorrow.

WorkForceWV receives $6 million green grant for workforce training

Looking for high school speech and debate judges

Tune in tomorrow

Little Creek Ice Bowl: A Covenant House benefit

The state of the State of West Virginia

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