THE 2011-2012 PENNSYLVANIA GENERAL FUND BUDGET: FUNDING INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIPS

The Pennsylvania Fund for Workforce Solutions (PFWS) has sent letters to the Governor, members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly and Pennsylvania's Secretary of Labor & Industry requesting the restoration of funding for Pennsylvania's Industry Partnership program.

Since the legislature provided additional funding in 2005, Industry Partnerships have trained over 100,000 workers and have engaged over 6300 businesses in that effort. The $75 million in private sector matching funds these employers have contributed to the IP program demonstrates their commitment to this workforce strategy.

Unfortunately, state funding for the Industry Partnership program has declined since 2008-2009 due to the economic recession and slow recovery - from $20 million to $1.6 million in the 2010-2011 state budget. This is a reduction of over 90% despite strong support from business associations, individual employers, advocates for workers and the Pennsylvania legislature.

A recent cut from $7.6 million to $1.6 million resulted from an unfortunate decision under the previous Administration to have two separate line items in the budget with the largest one, "Training Activities" not clearly connected to the Industry Partnership program. These training funds were removed from the final budget and created a deficit situation for the Partnership program.

PFWS is asking that IP funding be restored to the previous $7.6 million level in the 2011-2012 state General Fund Budget to maintain the IP program in a robust way moving forward. Without these critical funds, IPs cannot continue to sustain necessary training activities.

If you would like to support the Industry Partnership program and IP funding please send a letter to Governor Corbett (click here) or to your Representatives (click here).