Category: Midwest

Kansas is hoping a new tax credit and grant program encourage employers to employ disabled workers and pay them at least the minimum wage.

This year’s passage of SB 15 marks one of the latest moves by states as they re-examine a federal policy established under the 86-year-old Fair Labor Standards Act. Under this law, companies are permitted to pay qualified disabled workers a subminimum wage by securing a “14(c)” certificate. This name refers to a section of the law that carves out an exemption to the act’s minimum-wage requirement. The exemption was designed to open employment to workers with qualifying disabilities who otherwise have little access to work.

However, legislators across the country have been considering measures to end the practice in their states. According to the Association of People Supporting Employment First, between 2015 and 2023, laws were passed in at least 15 states to end or phase out the subminimum wage and to prevent the issuance of new 14(c) certificates.

No Midwestern states have enacted an outright ban. Opponents of ending the 14(c) option argue that it will close job opportunities for individuals with disabilities or limit the benefits they receive from federal programs. Federal-level bans have been introduced but not advanced.

Kansas’ SB 15 lays out an alternative approach. First, it expands a state income tax credit for goods and services purchased from qualified businesses that employ disabled workers and that pay those workers at least the minimum wage. Second, the Sheltered Workshop Transition Grant Program aims to help employers transition away from paying workers with disabilities a subminimum wage.

Bills to phase out the subminimum wage advanced from their chambers of origin this year in Illinois (HB 793) and Minnesota (HF 4392), but then stalled. Legislation calling for a five-year phase-out of the subminimum wage also has been introduced in Ohio (HB 427). In 2021, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed an executive order requiring state contractors and subcontractors to pay “no less than” the applicable local (if higher) or state minimum wage. The order applies to a state program that encourages the purchasing of “products and services produced and provided by persons with significant disabilities.”

According to The Minnesota Star Tribune, as part of the 2023-24 biennial budget, Minnesota legislators included more than $5 million in grants to help employers begin shifting away from use of the subminimum wage.

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Starting with the class of 2026, Wisconsin graduates in the top 5 percent of their high school class will be guaranteed admission to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, while those in the top 10 percent are assured a spot at other schools in the UW system.

“Guaranteed admission” or “general acceptance” is fairly common in the Midwest, though these policies often are established by boards of regents. In contrast, Wisconsin’s new guarantee comes from this year’s passage of SB 367, a measure that also requires high schools to provide rankings of their high school classes (rankings as of the end of 11th grade for each class). Guaranteed admission applies as well to National Merit Scholarship finalists and home-schooled students with ACT scores at or above the 90th percentile (a score in the 98th percentile is required for automatic admission to UW-Madison).

In Illinois, automatic admission to most in-state public colleges and universities is granted to first-time freshmen who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school class and who achieve the required SAT or ACT scores. This four-year pilot program began in 2020-2021 (HB 26 of 2019). Legislators in Illinois more recently guaranteed admission to the state’s universities for qualifying students in the community college system (HB 3760 of 2023). The policy applies to students who have earned 36 transferable semester hours in community college with a grade-point average of at least 3.0.

The goals of guaranteed admission include helping students continue their education, keeping them in the state, and boosting enrollment at public universities. A 2022 study by the Education Commission of the States identified several other states in the Midwest — Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota — as having guaranteed-admission policies. The criteria for students to qualify varies from state to state. Iowa, for instance, has a Regent Admission Index that scores applicants based on composite ACT scores, cumulative grade-point average, and the number of completed high school core courses.

Mirroring national trends, undergraduate enrollment increased in most Midwestern states between spring 2023 and spring 2024, with Indiana being the lone exception in this region, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. However, enrollment remains down compared to five years ago in every Midwestern state except North Dakota (see map).

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The class of “forever chemicals” known by the acronym PFAS is the focus of a new federal drinking water standard as well as a wave of recent state legislation calling for partial or comprehensive bans on their use in commercial products.

Minnesota is in that vanguard of states.

In 2023, it became the third U.S. state, and first in the Midwest, to enact a phased ban on the manufacture and sale of commercial products containing “intentionally added” PFAS. Maine and Washington were the first two states with comprehensive bans — under laws from 2021 and 2022, respectively.

Such prohibitions are the latest state legislative development on PFAS reflecting a growing attempt to undo a Gordian knot almost a century in the tying.

Invented in the 1930s, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances feature a very strong molecular bond between fluorine and carbon that both repels water and oils and doesn’t break down over time.

Those two qualities are the reason PFAS became so commonplace in packaging, clothing, firefighting foams, and a host of household products (carpeting, cookware, cosmetics and dental floss, among many others). These chemicals also have myriad medical and industrial uses.

But as a 2021 study from the National Institutes of Health notes, concerns began to be raised at the turn of this century about the impacts of these “forever chemicals” — their presence in soil and waterways, their tendency to accumulate in organisms, and their possible toxicity in humans.

Minnesota ban begins to take effect in 2025

Bill Kramer, vice president of the public policy consultancy firm MultiState, says state legislatures began focusing on PFAS last decade.

Among the first wave of legislative responses: ban PFAS-containing firefighting foams, require testing of drinking water, and set maximum contaminant levels (a legally enforceable standard) in drinking water and groundwater.

In the Midwest, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin restricted the use of firefighting foams with intentionally added PFAS for training or testing purposes. Illinois, which also bans the incineration of PFAS, is phasing out foams with PFAS starting in 2025.

More recently, Kramer says, policymakers have focused on consumer products, as seen in two common strategies:

1) reporting requirements to identify products that contain intentionally added PFAS, and

2) outright bans on the use of PFAS in specific products or product categories, including packaging.

“[States] start with food containers and firefighting foam; those are two popular areas [for product-related bans],” Kramer says.

Less common are comprehensive PFAS prohibitions such as Minnesota’s.

Under HF 2310, the PFAS ban covers carpets or rugs, cleaning products, cookware, cosmetics, dental floss, fabric treatments, juvenile and menstruation products, textile furnishings, ski wax, and upholstered furniture.

The prohibition on these classes of products containing “intentionally added” PFAS takes effect in 2025. Seven years later, it expands to all products unless the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency determines PFAS use is “currently unavoidable.”

Starting in 2026, too, the manufacturers of products that contain intentionally added PFAS must submit reports to the state.

“We have a long way to go to get PFAS out of our daily lives, but this bill puts us on the right path,” Minnesota Rep. Jeff Brand, author of the original legislation, said after it became law.

The PFAS provisions in HF 2310 were dubbed Amara’s Law, named in honor of a woman whom Brand says died of a rare, terminal form of liver cancer caused by PFAS.

Another part of the Minnesota law bans the manufacture, sale and use of PFAS from certain firefighting foams as of this year, except at terminals and oil refineries. These facilities must phase out PFAS use by 2026.

Delays in Maine; review process in Washington

Maine’s 2021 law initially set 2030 as the target by which products with intentionally added PFAS would be banned from sale or manufacture. It also required manufacturers to report products for sale with intentionally added PFAS starting in 2023. The reporting deadline was delayed to 2025, however, because regulations weren’t ready in time.

Following negotiations between business and environmental groups to provide more time to comply with the law’s goals, Maine this year adopted significant changes: LD 1537 sets a longer phase-out schedule and changes language in the reporting requirement from “intentionally added” to “currently unavoidable use.”

Several products also are now exempt from the ban, including firefighting foam and medical devices or veterinary products regulated by federal agencies.

Washington’s 2022 law is different, Kramer says, because it authorizes the state Department of Ecology to create a regular process for determining “priority” chemical classes for review.

Part of that review is deciding whether to regulate those chemicals, and how, as well as identifying their presence in consumer products.

PFAS were among the first chemical class to be reviewed. Restrictions have since been proposed for aftermarket stain- and water-resistant treatments, carpets and rugs in 2025, and for indoor furniture in 2026.

Activity in the Midwest

Will other states begin enacting comprehensive bans such as the ones in Minnesota, Maine and Washington?

In August, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu signed into law a new PFAS ban. Legislation was also under consideration in at least three Midwestern states this year, but none of the bills had advanced past the committee stage as of September. (Sessions in Illinois and Wisconsin have ended.)

• Illinois’ SB 88 calls for a phased ban to begin taking effect in 2025.
• Michigan’s HB 5657 would ban the use of “intentionally added” PFAS in all household products by 2027, minus a determination that the use of PFAS is “currently unavoidable.”
• AB 1194/SB 1093 in Wisconsin would ban “intentionally added” PFAS from food packaging, cleaning products, cosmetics and textile furnishings by 2028, and from all products by 2034. There would be exemptions for “unavoidable use.”

Illinois SB 3360 is part of the other recent legislative trend noted by Kramer: a push for more reporting and understanding of what products contain PFAS. The measure would authorize Illinois’ participation in an interstate safe-chemicals clearinghouse, and products with intentionally added PFAS would need to be registered with the state.

“That would at least allow the ability to know who is adding PFAS to their products,” says the bill’s sponsor, Illinois Sen. Laura Ellman. “Right now, nobody really knows.”

EPA sets new standards

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in April released new national standards for PFAS in drinking water and designated two PFAS (PFOA and PFOS) as hazardous substances under the federal “Superfund” law.

This designation means that leaks, spills and other releases of PFOA and PFOS must be reported to the EPA. Sellers of contaminated property must now both disclose the contamination and guarantee it’s been cleaned up or will be in the future. The drinking water standard will require PFAS monitoring, and potential remediation, by local water utilities (see table for details).

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Abortion policy to be decided in two more Midwestern states

Nebraska and South Dakota are among 10 U.S. states with ballot measures on abortion. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, all but one of these proposed constitutional amendments seeks to protect abortion rights.

The one exception is a measure in Nebraska that would enshrine in the state Constitution a law passed by the Legislature in 2023 (LB 574). It prohibits most abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions for medical emergencies or for pregnancies caused by sexual assault or incest. A competing proposal in Nebraska would establish a right to abortion until fetal viability.

In South Dakota, most abortions are banned under a law that took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision. The only exception is if a medical provider determines the procedure is “necessary to preserve the life of a pregnant female.”

Under this year’s proposed constitutional amendment, a state-level ban would be allowed only for the third trimester of a pregnancy, and it would need to have exceptions to protect the health and life of a pregnant woman. During the first trimester of a pregnancy, South Dakota women would have a complete right to abortion. Any state-level regulation during the second trimester would need to be “reasonably related to the physical health of the woman.”

Abortion-related ballot measures already have been voted on in three Midwestern states since the Dobbs decision. Kansans rejected a legislatively referred constitutional amendment stating there was no right to an abortion in the state Constitution. Voters in Michigan and Ohio included the right to an abortion in their respective state constitutions.

End of the property tax in North Dakota? Food sales tax in South Dakota?

Property tax relief was a common theme this year in the Midwest’s legislatures, and the subject of special sessions held in Kansas and Nebraska.

In November, North Dakotans will decide whether to take a much further-reaching step — elimination of the property tax. A citizen-initiated constitutional amendment would “prohibit the state government and all local taxing entities from assessing a property tax on real or personal property.”

The Legislative Assembly would be constitutionally obligated to find a way of replacing this revenue for local governments, estimated to be a biennial total of $3.15 billion. According to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the property tax accounted for 10.0 percent of total state and local revenue in North Dakota in 2021. For other Midwestern states, it accounts for an even greater percentage, ranging from 10.4 percent in Indiana to 20.4 percent in Illinois.

Voters in South Dakota, meanwhile, face a decision about the future of sales taxes on food. Most states in the Midwest do not levy such taxes, with the lone exceptions being South Dakota, Kansas (where the food tax is being phased out) and Illinois (food is taxed at a lower rate, 1 percent, and the tax will be eliminated in 2026).

South Dakota’s proposed citizen-initiated statute would ban the state from collecting sales and use taxes “on anything sold for human consumption, except alcoholic beverages and prepared food.” Legislative fiscal analysts have pegged the impact on state revenues at anywhere between $133.6 million and $646.43 million, depending on how “human consumption” is interpreted.

Changes to redistricting process on ballot in Ohio again

Prior to the last round of decennial redistricting, voters in Ohio and Michigan approved ballot measures that changed the process for redrawing legislative and congressional lines.

In Ohio, the pair of legislatively referred constitutional amendments (from 2015 and 2018) included provisions that aimed to encourage bipartisanship and prevent gerrymandering. However, the General Assembly and a commission of elected officials retained control of the process.

In contrast, Michigan’s citizen-initiated constitutional amendment (from 2018) created an independent redistricting commission, whose members cannot be legislators or other elected officials.

In 2024, redistricting is once again on the ballot in Ohio. This time, though, it’s in the form of a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment calling for creation of a Michigan-style, nonpolitician commission. In the Midwest’s nine other states, redistricting remains in the hands of state legislatures and governors (unless an impasse or legal challenge leads to intervention by the courts).

Redistricting reform has been the subject of multiple U.S. state ballot measures in recent years.

However, over the last decade, it has only appeared on the ballot in one other Midwestern state, South Dakota. In 2016, voters there rejected a commission-style approach.

Elections, voting are the subjects of ballot measures in Iowa, South Dakota and Wisconsin

The legislatively referred measures in Iowa and Wisconsin seek constitutional language prohibiting state and local governments from allowing noncitizens to vote.

The Iowa measure also would give 17-year-olds the constitutional right to participate in primary elections, if they will turn 18 by the general election. Legislators first expanded this right under a 2017 law.

South Dakota’s elections-related measure would abolish party primaries in races for U.S. Congress, state Legislature, the governor and county offices. Instead, in the election for each of these offices, candidates would compete in a single, open primary. The top vote-getters, regardless of party, then move on: the top two candidates for a race in which one person is to be elected in the general election, and the top four candidates when two are to be elected in the general election.

According to Ballotpedia, South Dakota is one of eight states (no others in the Midwest) with November ballot measures to establish nonpartisan primaries and/or ranked-choice voting.

Nebraska is the only Midwestern state with any kind of nonpartisan primary system for state-level races. It’s used there for elections to the nonpartisan Unicameral Legislature.

Marijuana legalization continues to appear on ballots in Midwest

Over the last six years, the adult use of recreational marijuana has been legalized in four Midwestern states: Illinois (2019) and Minnesota (2023) through legislative action, Ohio (2023) and Michigan (2018) through direct votes of the citizens. Legalization measures are on the ballot this November in North Dakota and South Dakota, in the form of citizen-initiated state statutes. These two states already allow for the medical use of marijuana as the result of previous voter-approved measures.

A medical cannabis program would be established in Nebraska under two proposals before voters: one to legalize medical cannabis, a second creating a state commission to oversee and regulate its use.

 

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State-by-state overview of all 27 measures on November 2024 ballots in the Midwest

Illinois

• Three legislatively referred advisory questions on 1) raising the income tax on incomes greater than $1 million and using the additional dollars for property tax relief; 2) requiring health coverage for in vitro fertilization and other medically appropriate reproductive treatments; and 3) establishing civil penalties for candidates for office who interfere with election workers

Indiana

• One legislatively referred constitutional amendment to remove the school superintendent from the line of gubernatorial succession

Iowa

• Two legislatively referred constitutional amendments on 1) prohibiting noncitizens from voting; and 2) clarifying the gubernatorial line of succession

Minnesota

• One legislatively referred constitutional amendment to continue using lottery-derived revenue to fund environment and natural resources projects

Nebraska

• Two citizen-initiated constitutional amendments on abortion
• Three citizen-initiated state statutes to 1) legalize medical marijuana; 2) regulate medical marijuana; and 3) ensure workers can earn paid sick time
• One citizen-initiated measure to repeal a law providing tax credits for donations to private school scholarship programs
  

North Dakota

• Three legislatively referred constitutional amendments to 1) change language describing people with disabilities; 2) alter rules on citizen-initiated constitutional amendments; and 3) establish new rules on transfers from the Legacy Fund
• Two citizen-initiated constitutional amendments to 1) eliminate the property tax; and 2) legalize the recreational use of marijuana

Ohio

• One citizen-initiated constitutional amendment to create a nonpolitician redistricting commission

South Dakota

• Two legislatively referred constitutional amendments to 1) use gender-neutral terms in references to officeholders; and 2) authorize a work requirement for certain Medicaid enrollees
• One citizen-initiated constitutional amendment to provide a right to an abortion
• Three citizen-initiated state statutes to 1) establish nonpartisan primaries; 2) end the food sales tax; and 3) legalize the recreational use of marijuana
• One citizen-initiated measure to repeal a law on carbon pipelines

Wisconsin

• One legislatively referred constitutional amendment to prohibit voting by noncitizens

 

 

The post Voters’ turn: 27 measures on ballot in eight Midwestern states appeared first on CSG Midwest.

Identify a top workforce challenge in your community, and we’ll provide you with the funding to address it. That is the idea behind North Dakota’s $15 million Regional Workforce Impact Program, first created by legislators during a special session in 2021 (SB 2345) and now providing grants across eight distinct workforce planning regions of the state.

One common theme during the first two rounds of grant funding: the need for more child care. A majority of state-financed projects under the program (the state requires a 25 percent local match), and about three-quarters of the total dollars, is for the construction of new or the expansion of existing child care centers. This investment is on top of other new spending in North Dakota to expand access to child care, including the $66 million appropriated under last year’s HB 1540.

It also reflects a broader trend in workforce policy in the Midwest. States are looking at more than just the traditional strategies of job training, educational attainment, out-of-state recruitment and upskilling; they’re also trying to eliminate barriers to workforce participation.

Child care has topped the list of priorities, with funding in this area often being directly linked to workforce issues. In Iowa, for instance, the state is now offering grants to businesses that offer or expand child care options as a benefit to their employees.

In Wisconsin, a Workforce Innovation Grant Program has funded several regional collaborations to address barriers that limit a person’s opportunity to participate in workforce training or to secure and hold a job. Grants have gone to local transportation projects that help individuals get to and from work, home and a child care center through the use of micro-transit services, volunteer drivers, local taxi companies and a FlexRide program in the Milwaukee area. The program also has made infrastructure investments to allow for the construction of an affordable-housing complex for workers near a major employer in northern Wisconsin.

In early 2023, the Michigan Legislature passed a measure (SB 7) that included $15 million to launch the Barrier Removal and Employment Success Expansion grant program. Designed to help low-income workers, the program’s wrap-around services range from transportation, child care and housing supports, to help with the purchase of work tools and equipment or legal services to expunge criminal records.

The workforce programs in Michigan, North Dakota and Wisconsin have been supported by the American Rescue Plan Act’s Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund. Whether they continue will depend on decisions made by state legislatures and governors.

 

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Workforce Innovation and Transformation is the CSG Midwestern Legislative Conference Chair’s Initiative of Ohio Sen. Bill Reineke. In support of this initiative, a series of articles on this topic are appearing this year in Stateline Midwest.

The post MLC Chair’s Initiative on Workforce: Goal of recent state-led initiatives is to remove barriers to workforce participation appeared first on CSG Midwest.

For years, a common target of government reform advocates has been “siloing,” when a lack of inter-agency planning and communication results in redundancies and inefficiencies, as well as frustration among citizens.

A case in point: an often-fractured approach to delivering and overseeing the services that the families of young children need.

“Right now, if a day care center wants to set up shop, it must work with one state agency to get licensed, another to receive workforce support, and a third to get funding,” Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said in her State of the State address at the start of the year.

“There are too many barriers, too many portals, too much hassle. We need to fix it.”

Other policy leaders have observed similar governance problems in their states, at a time when they are looking to expand the capacity and quality of early-childhood care and learning opportunities — a policy goal that has been identified as crucial to addressing everything from workforce shortages to young people’s readiness for K-12 success.

“Families are not getting the services that they need because they are not sure where to go to or what they’re entitled to,” says Illinois Rep. Joyce Mason, chair of the House Child Care Accessibility & Early Childhood Education Committee.

In her state, and across much of the region, a push is under way to end the siloing and create a governance model that works better for families, early-childhood providers and other stakeholders.

The result has been a mix of executive actions by governors, legislative proposals and laws, many of which are creating new stand-alone state agencies that consolidate programming and regulatory oversight of early-childhood education.

States creating new stand-alone agencies

Last year, Minnesota legislators (as part of a larger effort to break up certain divisions within the Department of Human Services) created the Department of Children, Youth and Families (SF 2995).

According to the Minnesota Star Tribune, in addition to gaining administrative authority over child care licensing and certain early-childhood education programs, the department will oversee foster care and adoption programs and the juvenile justice system.

More broadly, it will improve the coordination of services while “elevating children and families in policy and budget decisions,” according to a March 2024 report from Minnesota Management and Budget.

In Michigan, the Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement and Potential was established in July 2023 with the signing of an executive order by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

As the department’s name suggests, its work is not just limited to early childhood education and child care programming. Mobilizing and delivering education resources for all ages, from preschool to postsecondary and beyond, falls under its mission.

“If we’re recruiting adults to come back to school under programs like Michigan Reconnect, what are we doing at the same time about [their] children who count on them for caregiving?” says Michelle Richard, who helps lead the new department.

Having all of those services housed within a single agency, she adds, better reflects how people’s lives intersect with the work of multiple state programs.

This administrative consolidation, Richard adds, should help the state as it seeks to fund universal prekindergarten for all 4-year olds by 2027. Advocates in Illinois have articulated a similar 2027 goal.

“When we’re thinking about that planning work here [at the department], we’re not thinking about, ‘Our pre-K team needs to lead this work,’” Richard explains.

“Maybe that’s true, but they need to be surrounded by a team that says, ‘If we do this, what does that mean for child care? If we do this, how are we collaborating with Head Start? How are we using child care licensing rules to help jumpstart pre-K classrooms?’ ”

‘Smart Start’ in Illinois

Michigan’s change in governance is somewhat unique compared to other states in the region.

Administrative consolidation came about in less than five months and was purely the result of an executive order. (Note: The constitutionality of this order has been questioned by some opponents, particularly as it pertains to the authority and duties of the State Board of Education.)

In contrast, advocates in Illinois and Kansas called for a two-year transition period, and the governors sought consolidation through legislative action.

And in both of these states, calls for new stand-alone agencies came as the result of findings from bipartisan task forces.

Between 2019 and 2021, a governor-established commission in Illinois focused on ideas for ensuring equitable funding and outcomes for children during the pivotal early learning years.

The commission noted in its final report that the state had a long way to go to reach these policy goals. For example, it found that kindergarten readiness varied distinctly across racial and ethnic lines.

Additionally, in 2019, “only 20 percent of low-income children and 29 percent of all Illinois children demonstrated full readiness across language/literacy, math, and social-emotional domains when they entered kindergarten.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker and legislators have since launched a multi-year appropriations plan known as “Smart Start.” Along with more funding for home visiting programs, Smart Start grants are used to increase wages in the child care sector and to add preschool seats in Illinois communities identified as “preschool deserts.”

The commission’s final report also proposed the creation of a Department of Early Childhood. Pritzker embraced the idea and passed an executive order to kickstart work on the transition.

He sought legislative action as well, and SB 1 became law in June.

Rep. Mason, one of the bill’s chief co-sponsors, says that in addition to helping families navigate and find the early-childhood services available to them, the new department will allow existing state agencies to prioritize their core missions.

For example, child care licensing authority is being taken away from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, an agency that has often faced bipartisan scrutiny over child safety and neglect-related deaths.

Removing this authority from DCFS will not only mean more of a focus on child well-being within that agency, Mason says, but also an opportunity for the state to modernize licensing in child care.

“If you are going to work in an early-childhood center and you are going to make, say, $17 an hour, and now you’re being told you have to wait up to two months for us to get the background check back … that’s not realistic, because the next day you could get hired at Target for the same or more money,” Mason says.

More community outreach

This recent focus on governance issues in early childhood also has led to other proposals in Illinois.

Rep. Jackie Haas has been part of a working group in her caucus looking at ways to make it easier for women to become the owners of child care businesses and to fill needs in their communities.

“What we were hearing from some of our constituents [and chambers of commerce] was they didn’t know how to open up their own centers,” says Haas.

“[DCFS holds] all of the orientations in field office sites, and they’re all in-person, with no virtual training. We looked at how we could possibly expand where they’re doing these so that it would cover more geography in the state.”

These conversations led Haas to sponsor HB 4059, which was signed into law in August and requires the state to hold orientations at least twice a year, offer virtual meeting options, and make them made available in languages other than English.

Regarding SB 1 and creation of the new stand-alone agency, Haas says she is optimistic that it could lead to “some strides for improvement in early childhood education.”

But she also believes policymakers should critically evaluate the eventual size of the department’s workforce “before we look at completely lateral transfers.”

Mason and other SB 1 supporters have made clear the intent is for no state employees to lose their jobs at the end of the transition period. For positions that are deemed redundant, Mason says, the plan will be to retrain people and perhaps rotate out some staff currently working in high-turnover divisions, such as casework.

GG Weisenfeld of the National Institute for Early Education Research says one caveat about agency consolidation is that the end result is not always a leaner workforce or completely streamlined operations.

“People have the assumption, ‘Oh, if I just consolidate programs, I can get rid of people’, and you really can’t,” Weisenfeld says.

“You still need people to run programs, you need people to coordinate, you need people to figure out how all these funding streams are going to blend in or braid.”

‘Over 900 slots short’

Last year, Gov. Kelly created the Kansas Early Childhood Transition Task Force, whose work and findings led to her proposed Office of Early Childhood.

Despite Kansas being the first state in the country to create a Children’s Trust Fund way back in 1980, the task force (using data from 2018 to 2020) found that 44 percent of the state’s residents live in a child care desert, only 8 percent of families can afford infant care, and 38 percent of 3- to 5-year olds are not enrolled in a pre-K program.

Additionally, a 2023 report from the Bipartisan Policy Center ranked Kansas 49th among states in a study assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of coordination of state early childhood systems.

Throughout the spring session, plans for this new Office of Early Childhood evolved several times before culminating in the language of SB 96. When this bill entered conference committee for amendments, Rep. Tory Marie Blew became one of the chief negotiators.

Like the governor, Blew believes having a one-stop-shop for early-childhood education could lead to better coordination. However, that doesn’t mean the Legislature and the governor’s office were in complete lockstep.

For example, one sticking point was whether to provide more flexibility to child care centers on their staff-pupil ratios.

Republican lawmakers, who favor increasing ratios for certain age groups, argue it could open more slots in child care centers and thereby expand access.

“Just in my county alone, which is a rural county, we’re over 900 slots short,” Blew says.

Kelly, a Democrat, and others argued that increasing the number of children or infants per staffer could jeopardize safety.

The compromise: Any increases to staff-pupil ratios would need to come via administrative rulemaking, not a change in statute.

Other notable changes made in conference committee included allowing non-family members to watch children for longer periods of time, expanding the definition of “day care facility” to include youth out-of-school or “drop-in” programs, and the formation of a five-year pilot program to waive certain licensing requirements and to increase child care facility and drop-in program capacities.

SB 96 did not receive a final vote in the Senate before legislators adjourned.

The overarching idea of having a stand-alone agency for early childhood, though, remains a top priority of Kelly’s. It likely will be considered again next session.

The post New laws reflect states’ move to consolidate early learning and care appeared first on CSG Midwest.

Congratulations to these seven alumni of the Bowhay Institute for Legislative Leadership Development who are part of this year’s CSG Toll Fellows Class.

• Ohio House Assistant Minority Leader Dontavius Jarrells, BILLD Class of 2022
• Illinois Rep. Anna Moeller, BILLD Class of 2017, and co-chair of the CSG Midwestern Legislative Conference BILLD Steering Committee
• Ohio Sen. Michele Reynolds, BILLD Class of 2023
• Wisconsin Sen. Kelda Roys, BILLD Class of 2009
• Michigan Rep. Donavan McKinney, BILLD Class of 2023
• Nebraska Sen. John Fredrickson, BILLD Class of 2023
• Indiana Sen. Scott Alexander, BILLD Class of 2024

Along with the seven BILLD alumni, this year’s Toll Fellows Class for the Midwest includes Minnesota Sen. Alice Mann and four leaders from the region’s executive branches.

Named in honor of Henry Wolcott Toll, the Colorado state senator who founded The Council of State Governments in 1933, Toll Fellows is one of the nation’s premier leadership development programs for state government officials.

Each year, a select group of the nation’s top officials and emerging leaders from all three branches of state government take part in Toll’s intensive five-day “leadership boot camp.” Sessions are designed to stimulate personal assessment and growth, while providing priceless networking and relationship-building opportunities.

This year’s Toll program included participation from 48 state officials and was held in September in Lexington, Kentucky. Participants will graduate at CSG’s National Conference, Dec. 4-7, in New Orleans.

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Forty legislators representing six U.S. states and two Canadian provinces traveled to Duluth, Minn., in early September to explore policies designed to protect and restore the Great Lakes.

At this year’s Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Legislative Caucus (GLLC) Annual Meeting, participating legislators adopted policy recommendations on climate resiliency, passed a resolution to study large water withdrawals from within the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin, and elected new officers and an Executive Committee to serve in 2025-2026.

CSG Midwest provides staff support to the nonpartisan, binational caucus, which aims to strengthen the role of state and provincial legislators in the policymaking process. Through membership and participation in the GLLC, legislators are able to collaborate, educate and take actions on issues related to the restoration, protection, and sustainable use of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River for current and future generations.

The two newly elected officers of the caucus are Illinois Sen. Laura Fine and Indiana Rep. David Abbott. Along with these two officers, the caucus has an Executive Committee of legislators to oversee and guide its work (see photo and caption). Officers and committee members are chosen for two-year terms.

At the Annual Meeting in Duluth, participants heard presentations on flood resilience, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s water program, green infrastructure, the Great Lakes compact, the management of plastic waste, international science collaboration on the Great Lakes, and Minnesota’s implementation of recently passed PFAS regulations. In addition, the group toured the Duluth Seaway Port Authority terminal and went out on Lake Superior with researchers from the University of Minnesota’s Large Lakes Observatory.

GLLC leadership also participated in a tree planting in partnership with the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers and the city of Duluth as part of the Regional Tree Initiative. The goal of the initiative is to plant 250 million trees in the Great Lakes region by 2033.

The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Legislative Caucus meets in person once a year. It also holds policy-focused institutes for legislators, tracks state and federal bills on water and Great Lakes policy, holds web-based meetings, and gives members the chance to serve as a voice for the region on federal Great Lakes policy.

Membership is free and open to all legislators representing the Great Lakes’ eight U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.

• How legislators can join the GLLC »

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More than three dozen state and provincial legislators came together in Madison, Wis. in late August for five days of learning, leadership development and relationship building as part of The Council of State Governments’ 29th annual Bowhay Institute for Legislative Leadership Development.

Serving state and provincial legislators in their first four years of service, BILLD is a signature program of CSG’s Midwestern Legislative Conference. Fellows are selected in the spring via a competitive application process overseen by the MLC’s BILLD Steering Committee.

The 2024 BILLD program was held with participation from a bipartisan, binational group of legislators from across the Midwest.

Read about this year’s class »

This year’s program featured:

• a roundtable discussion on legislative strategies with Illinois House Majority Leader Robyn Gabel, Minnesota House Minority Leader Rep. Lisa Demuth (BILLD Class of 2021), Kansas Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes (BILLD Class of 2017), and Wisconsin Senate President Pro Tempore Patrick Testin (BILLD Class of 2018);
• training on communication, leadership style and competencies, ethics, time and focus management, bipartisan collaboration, negotiation and conflict resolution;
• featured speakers who provided their expertise on the region’s state legislative institutions and how to build excellence in them, the interplay between the legislative and judicial branches, and the enduring legacy of principled political leadership; and
• policy sessions on the Midwest’s labor force and economy, using data and real-life situations to improve public safety outcomes, and U.S.-Canada relations.

Applications for next year’s BILLD program will be available later this year or in early 2025.

Learn more about BILLD »

 

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Every year, $4 billion or more flows from the federal government to states for workforce training and development. Add to that the billions of dollars being invested over the next five years in local economies under laws such as the CHIPS and Science Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, and states are positioned to think big about workforce innovation and transformation.

But an expert panel at this summer’s CSG Midwestern Legislative Conference Annual Meeting also had a note of caution for the region’s legislators: Make your state’s approach to workforce policy more strategic, nimble and holistic, or you risk wasting those taxpayer dollars as well as some of the coming economic opportunities.

“In a place like Ohio, and I imagine in many of the states represented here, we’re a little hungry, right?” Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said to legislators during the session. “We went through three decades of being kicked around pretty good because our manufacturing base got eroded, and generations of people moved out of our states.

“And now that we’re doing ‘made in America’ again, we’re developing supply chains again, we have the opportunity to help the people in our communities, the businesses that are there, capture this moment.”

It’s a time of “more people than jobs,” he added, and where a skilled workforce will top the list of factors for businesses on where they invest and locate.

Joining Husted on the expert panel were Shalin Jyotishi of New America and Jeannine LaPrad of the National Skills Coalition. Pat Tiberi, a former state legislator, U.S. congressman and now head of the Ohio Business Roundtable, moderated the discussion. The session was held in support of the 2024 MLC Chair’s Initiative of Ohio Sen. Bill Reineke: Workforce Innovation and Transformation.

How and why some job training fails to deliver

According to Jyotishi, the billions of dollars coming to states via federal laws such as the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act have not yielded the kind of results that policymakers should demand. In 2022, for example, a U.S. Department of Labor study found that in the first three years after individuals completed training under federally funded career pathways programs, their wages were only 6 percent higher compared to those who did not.

Further, the average wage of program completers was about $17,000 a year, and any positive earning effects of the training disappeared over the medium and long term.

“That doesn’t sound like a very effective outcome to me,” said Jyotishi, the founder and managing director of New America’s Future of Work and Innovation Economy Initiative. “Taxpayers lost, the workers lost, and, as we well know, employers still face workforce challenges.”

States have the authority to steer these programs in a different direction. Avoid “low-quality training” that leads to “unemployment, under-employment or employment in poverty-wage jobs,” Jyotishi said, and make sure funding lines up with your state’s broader economic needs and aspirations.

This requires more strategic thinking and planning on workforce policy, a role that legislatures can lead on.

“If you are looking to build your semiconductor industry, make sure your WIOA and Perkins funding is aligned to fund workforce programs in the semiconductor industry,” he said. “Trucking right now represents more of WIOA funds than the next nine categories of occupations. Trucking has a 90 percent turnover rate. Some of the jobs pay well, but it tends to be a very grueling occupation.

“And I haven’t seen a lot of legislators that want to grow the trucking industry as a strategic economic development priority.”

‘It has to be localized’

Husted, who leads the Ohio Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation, cautioned about relying too heavily on federal workforce policy or funding (“it’s too slow and bureaucratic” to be a centerpiece of your strategy, he said) or trying to “central plan” at the state level.

“It has to be localized,” Husted said. “You can have goals, you can fund it, you can have expectations. But allow latitude for local delivery.”

Within every state, Husted noted, there are many distinct economic regions — in Ohio, for example, a strategy for Cincinnati might not be suited for Columbus, Akron, Dayton or rural areas.

“You have to have a private-public partnership where you understand the unique needs of the region that you’re in,” Husted said. “Your public institutions — your high schools, your career centers, your community colleges, your universities — need to be aligned with what’s happening there.”

This collaboration might only occur, though, with a nudge or incentives from the state.

“You get the educator sitting there at the table, you get the private sector sitting there, and you get them to agree on what they need,” Husted said. “And then you finance it.”

Ohio does this in part through its Industry Sector Partnerships initiative. Led by the business community, and including involvement by education and training providers, these partnerships develop and implement a workforce strategy, either for a single sector or multiple sectors, but always for a single region within the state.

Another policy trend has been to nurture more sector-based strategies.

In Michigan, for example, the state prioritizes select industry sectors (agriculture, health care, energy and information technology are among them) and brings together multiple employers from a single sector to determine its talent needs and challenges. Next, they work with local educators and others to develop a “demand-driven workforce system.”

“When I think of state policy as a lever to better align industry and academia and economic development … there’s no strategy that I think of as more important than sectoral strategies,” Jyotishi said.

More than training: Workers need ‘holistic supports’

This recent era of “more jobs than people” is captured in data tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: the number of unemployed persons per job opening. Nationwide, the ratio was 0.8 as of June 2024, compared to 1.9 in 2014 and 2.1 in 2004. (Over the past two years, the number of unemployed persons per job opening has increased some, from a low of 0.5 in parts of 2022 to the July 2024 ratio of 0.8.)

In the Midwest, these ratios are even lower than the U.S. average in North Dakota and South Dakota (0.4), Minnesota (0.5), Nebraska and Wisconsin (0.6), and Iowa and Kansas (0.7).

In part because of this tight labor market, more attention is being paid to the barriers that stand in the way of people participating in job training, earning a postsecondary credential or degree, and entering and staying in the workforce.

“Many folks need access to holistic supports and services,” said LaPrad, managing director of policy and research at the National Skills Coalition.

Addressing concerns about the costs of child care, for instance, has become more central to state workforce strategies, with LaPrad singling out Iowa and Michigan as examples. In Iowa, state incentives are now available to businesses that offer child care as part of their benefits packages for workers, and in Michigan, an innovative “tri-share” model shares the costs of child care equally among the employer, the employee and the state.

“We’re going to see a need to focus not only on child care, but elder care and other family-care issues are also becoming fundamental for many workers,” LaPrad added.

Apprenticeships in reach for high school students

Husted has been working on workforce policy for several decades, including periods marked by “more people than jobs.” Today, he said, business leaders are eager to be part of building a skilled workforce, which requires partnerships with state education systems, both K-12 and postsecondary.

At the K-12 level, Husted noted, every school district in Ohio must now have a business advisory council, a convening of local education and business leaders to foster work-based learning opportunities centered on the area’s economic drivers. The state also is placing a greater emphasis on career and technical education, as reflected in a renamed and reorganized state Department of Education and Workforce (SB 1 of 2023) and a two-year state budget that included $267.7 million in grants to expand the capacity of CTE programs.

At one Ohio career center, Husted noted during the session, 96 percent of graduates had job offers and, as a class, had earned $2.5 million while still in school thanks to apprenticeships at local businesses.

“They were leaving as electricians, robotics maintenance technicians and nurses, and with a variety of different skills,” Husted said.

His goal is that all Ohio high school students graduate with a “skill that is hireable and desired in the economy, because from there, they can either go directly to work or go to work somewhere where the employer will pay for their college degree.”

According to Jyotishi, youth apprenticeships are a promising model for states, particularly those that offer students the chance not only to “earn and learn” in high school, but also accrue college credits prior to graduation. He pointed to Career Launch in Chicago and Kalamazoo, Mich., and the Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP) initiative in Minneapolis as exemplary programs.

Wisconsin has the oldest and largest youth apprenticeship program in the nation, the Urban Institute noted in a 2023 study, and the Legislature has since increased state support for it, up to a total of $19 million in the current two-year budget (compared to $12 million in the last biennium.). Local coalitions of school districts, labor organizations and industry groups run each of Wisconsin’s youth apprenticeships, which focus on training and learning in a “career cluster” identified by the Legislature in statute.

Outcome-based funding for community colleges

At the postsecondary level, LaPrad said, a handful of states are moving toward performance-based funding for community colleges. She noted a new law in Texas as an example. Under HB 8 of 2023, student outcomes will determine funding levels. One of the metrics that will be used: the number of college students who earned a “credential of value,” with extra weight given to credentials tied to a high-demand occupation. Additionally, to have “value,” the credential must be tied to eventual future higher earnings for the student.

“Refinancing should be foundational to how we think about public institutions, especially two-year institutions, being able to be more nimble,” LaPrad said, noting how the incentive structure rewards colleges that adapt to evolving workforce needs.

The panel also explored changes coming from technological advances such as the rise of artificial intelligence, which they said, at first, is likely to augment rather than replace jobs.

In Ohio, Husted said, the state’s TechCred program now offers reimbursements to employers for the costs associated with a worker earning an industry-recognized, technology-focused credential. The reimbursement is up to $2,000 per credential. As of May 2024, more than 100,000 credentials had been awarded, and AI-based credentials are making up a larger and larger number of requests, Husted said.

Jyotishi suggested public investments in programs that embed industry certifications into postsecondary programs that also lead to degrees.

“Degree programs are still going to be important if you want the tech jobs and if you want this region to become the Tech Belt, not the Rust Belt,” he said.

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Workforce Innovation and Transformation is the CSG Midwestern Legislative Conference 2024 Chair’s Initiative of Ohio Sen. Bill Reineke.

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