Update in works for Workforce Investment Board
The Southwest Corner Workforce Investment Board, which represents workforce development in Washington, Greene and Beaver counties, is undergoing its biggest change in the past 15 years.
On Tuesday, during a meeting at the Hilton Garden Inn in Southpointe, members of the board, which reports to the county commissioners of the three counties, saw a reorganization of the chief local elected officials and the hiring of a solicitor whose work turned around a troubled WIB in Northwestern Pennsylvania.
Washington County commission Chairman Larry Maggi, who was elected chairman of the reorganized CLEO, said following the meeting that the changes made Tuesday are an effort to update an agreement with the WIB that was drafted in 1999.
“We just want to get updated,” Maggi said. “A lot of things of changed” since the last agreement was written. “We need to tweak some of the rules.”
In 1998, the Workforce Investment Act was signed into law, establishing state and local workforce investment boards and also creating PA CareerLink, whose offices assist people in finding jobs.
The commonwealth then formed a state WIB and 23 regional workforce investment areas across the state. The WIBs, which focus on the regional economy, determine how many career centers are needed in their area, their locations and how they will be operated. The boards analyze workforce information to identify targeted industries and plan for future growth.
Overseeing the WIB are CLEOs, which are responsible for making sure the agency operates in accordance with the law and appointing members of the WIB. The CLEOs also approve the annual budget for WIB operations.
During the meeting, the CLEO board also hired Will White, a Butler County attorney, as its solicitor.
Board members first met White, who works with the Butler firm of Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham, at a meeting in Washington earlier this month.
He also serves as solicitor for the six-County Northwest WIB, (Erie, Crawford, Venango, Warren, Forest and Clarion counties) which he helped to reorganize, creating new bylaws and expanding the 22-member board.
White was hired as solicitor for the Northwest WIB after an audit by the state Department of Labor & Industry of the Meadville-based nonprofit Regional Center for Workforce Excellence, which was fiscal agent of the WIB.
The audit, which examined the state and federal spending of the RCWE, blasted the ways the center spent money and its lack of transparency over a four-year period.
White told the local board last month he did not expect to find those kinds of discrepancies here.
White said at the earlier meeting that if he were hired by the local board, he would use the documents he created for the Northwest WIB as a template for the changes that would help to update the Southwest Corner WIB.
White, whose firm was hired on retainer of $175 per hour, said he will attend all meetings and do all of the work. The hourly rate is set by Labor and Industry.
In addition to Maggi’s election as chairman, Greene County Commissioner Archie Trader was elected vice chairman, and Beaver County commissioner Tony Amadio was elected second vice chairman.
The positions, which require a three-year commitment, will rotate at the end of each fiscal year.
At the close of Tuesday’s meeting, White and members of the CLEO board scheduled a Nov. 10 informational meeting with a representative from the Department of Labor and Industry at the Greene County commissioners office.