HD37 - Encouraging Greater Business Involvement in Apprenticeships, Mentoring, and School-to-Work Initiatives


Executive Summary:
The key to getting greater and more meaningful business involvement in school-to-work transition initiatives, apprenticeships, and mentoring programs is to truly give businesses substantive influence in these initiatives, as well as financial incentives that will encourage and support business involvement. Business needs to be heavily involved in planning and executing the business-education partnerships that are key to building, expanding, and then sustaining a successful school-to-work initiative.

Any school-to-work initiative in Virginia should have a local school-to-work advisory committee, of which at least half the members should be businesspeople or other private sector employers. The other members of these local school-to-work advisory committees should include educators, parents, other citizens interested in school-to-work and presumably some students involved in the initiative. Such a partnership and governing committee for a school-to-work initiative create a solid business-education dialogue that can develop into a true business-education partnership.

Financial incentives are important to business in setting up or participating in such initiatives. While interest was expressed in additional tax credits, businesses already get a deduction on their federal income taxes for paying the wages of students and of other employees working with the students involved in a school-to-work initiative. This deduction, of course, also flows through to the state income tax return. The Commonwealth also provides two other tax credits that businesses might be able to use -- (1) the Worker Retraining Tax Credit, which gives businesses a tax credit equal to 30% of expenditures made by the business for certain worker retraining for qualified employees, and (2) the Neighborhood Assistance Act Credit, which allows a business to receive a tax credit equal to 45% of the cost of providing education or job training assistance to individuals in impoverished areas of the state.

As important as those sorts of financial incentives are to business, even more important is its desire to be able to hire employees who are better prepared academically and do not require expensive remediation in the basics. The importance of better prepared high school graduates was emphasized repeatedly by businesspeople. In addition, businesses are especially anxious to participate in school-to-work programs that will provide them with employees who have better skills for the job they will hold, a good work ethic and ability to work with others, the ability to identify good future employees whom they can train the way they wish, and the ability to retain good employees whom they can also move into supervisory positions.

It may also be extremely helpful to use school-to-work transition initiatives and apprenticeship programs as good incentives for economic development -- both in business recruitment and in business retention and expansion. In short, businesses are anxious to get good employees who are well-educated and ready to go to work. They want Virginia to have an excellent education system with high academic standards. Strong, substantive business involvement in school-to-work initiatives, apprenticeship programs, and mentoring programs is crucial to the success and sustainability of these initiatives.