Iowa Workforce Development Presents to House Committee
February 1, 2018
Iowa Workforce Development Director Beth Townsend and her senior leadership team presented to the House Labor Committee on Monday afternoon. She highlighted several initiatives her agency is working on and updated members on legislation that will be coming before the House Labor Committee.
The number one legislative initiative of IWD is the Future Ready Iowa initiative Gov. Kim Reynolds recently proposed. HSB 602 and SSB 3087 seek to expand educational opportunities and help close the skills gap that currently exists in Iowa. The ultimate goal of the legislation is to pave the way for 70 percent of Iowans to have some kind of education beyond the high school level by 2025. ABI strongly supports this bill, as workforce is our number one priority.
Some of the other initiatives IWD will focus on includes shoring up the unemployment trust fund, WIOA and receiving authorization to use federal funds to modernize the IT infrastructure of the unemployment insurance system.