Pulling in the same direction

By Staff
May 27, 2004
Choosing community college venues for ceremonial signings of Mississippi's new workforce development law was more than a good political decision by Gov. Haley Barbour. At Meridian Community College on Tuesday, Barbour took pen in hand in one of the actual classrooms where workforce training is delivered at Reed Hall and made a strong statement for a better way of doing things.
With Barbour's guidance and the invaluable willingness of the Legislature to step up to new realities, the law creates a single entity to oversee job skill training. It merges a complex federal-state system into what should be a cohesive unit able to give Mississippians what the governor called "a chance to get training for a higher skilled and better paying job."
Most of the bill took effect immediately and parts of it become law on July 1. The bill creates a Work Force Investment Board and one-stop'' job training centers. It also dissolves the Mississippi Employment Security Commission and moves its duties into the executive branch.
Barbour believes the law can be a national model for how the state and federal governments and units within them such as community colleges can cooperate more effectively in delivering necessary job training. It is an ambitious effort but, again, with the cooperation of the governor and Legislature and follow through by the new board, it can be done.
Hopefully, the law will accomplish its goal, one of the three policy objectives Barbour identified in his Meridian visit as essential to Mississippi's economic development. The other two are no new taxes and comprehensive tort reform.
In the case of workforce development, the mandate is "one entity, one purpose, pulling in one direction." It has been said that businesses in Mississippi must innovate, immigrate or evaporate; neither of those last two choices are palatable, and the new workforce development law is a bold step toward innovation.