Friday, July 25, 2014

To Comment or Not to Comment – That is the question


Remember – These notes don’t represent any official position of the Delaware Workforce Investment Board or the Delaware Department of Labor. Rather they are my personal thoughts and only represent my opinion.

There is a kerfuffle brewing.

With the passage and signing into law of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act the inevitable creation of a DOL regulation to cover the law is, or will soon be, underway by well meaning Employment and Training Administration (ETA) professionals.

One school of thought is that workforce professional should be careful about commenting on proposed regulations because in the words of one person, housed in DC, “You can’t fight about everything. We need to pick our battles.”

There is another valid school that says, “This is an innovation act and we should be careful and not let ETA put so many restrictions into it that it looks like a WIA (Workforce Investment Act) redo.” This school of thought comes from local and/or state workforce professionals administering programs at the end-user level.

Both schools seem valid, but I tend to lean toward the school that promotes questioning regulations in the comment period to ensure issues are addressed early. Since language matters, (and I believe it does) local and state boards need to review the law, discerned its intent, and be prepared to argue – with respect and clarity – where proposed regulations are faulty.

Again, this is just my opinion, but I intend to watch the comment period closely.


Bill

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