Often the pledge of bipartisanship that starts each session of the Indiana Legislature is gone by about the end of the first week of work in Indianapolis.
However, we were somewhat surprised last week with a press release out of the office of House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, who along with House Minority Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, announced the importance of a piece of legislation that deals with the state’s workforce.
The two stood together to talk about House Bill 1002, which is designed to improve coordination, communication and vision for Indiana’s workforce training and career preparation systems. The legislative leaders, joined by co-authors Reps. Steve Braun, R-Zionsville, and Ben Smaltz, R-Auburn, announced the proposal to establish the Indiana Career Council, a 15-member panel designed to bring the principal stakeholders in the state’s workforce development efforts to a single table, with the governor as its chair. The legislators were also joined by Kevin Brinegar, president and CEO of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, and Patrick J. Kiely, president and CEO of the Indiana Manufacturers Association, who announced their combined support for HB 1002 and its intent to take the state’s workforce development efforts to the next level.
“The single most critical challenge before this General Assembly is the issue of workforce development and job training. While Indiana is consistently ranked best in the Midwest in job creation environment, our unemployment rate hovers stubbornly at 8 percent. We must make every effort to align our job training and educational efforts to available and prospective Hoosier jobs. The ICC will bring the key players together to unite a fragmented system, share data and coordinate all elements of the state’s workforce development efforts” Bosma said.
“While we may disagree at times on the methods used to reach the goal, legislators on both sides of the aisle are fully committed to the effort to help Hoosier workers find and retain good-paying jobs,” Pelath said. “The greatest economic development tools we have in Indiana are the men and women who take pride in doing an honest day’s work. It only makes sense for us to put the machinery in place to let them get the skills they need to continue to provide for themselves and their families.”
More than 930,000 Hoosiers — nearly one-third of Indiana’s workforce — lack even the most basic skills to thrive in today’s economy, the news release said. Members of the ICC will be charged with aligning the education skills and training provided by Indiana’s educational, job skills and career training systems with the existing and projected needs of the state’s job market. The ICC will also be charged with submitting recommendations to the General Assembly on necessary improvements to Indiana’s job skills training system.
We are pleased to see this sort of cooperation. We hope it continues and we trust the Legislature will keep its eyes squarely focused on the true issues of the day, which deal primarily with the economy and education.