RD293 - Workforce Program Performance Indicators for The Commonwealth of Virginia

  • Published: 2008
  • Author: Chief Workforce Development Officer
  • Enabling Authority: Executive Order 61 (2008)

Executive Summary:
The Commonwealth of Virginia, as with other states, operates a panoply of programs whose objectives, either directly or indirectly, are to develop the state’s workforce. Some programs enhance the skills of Virginians through training or formal education; whereas other programs, such as the Employment Service, attempt to facilitate the employment of clients without much focus on training. In the abstract, each of these programs can be described as providing individuals who happen to encounter the program with a set of interventions or services that result in labor market outcomes. Naturally, the question arises of whether these interventions or services are effective. Because the programs are paid for with public resources, accountability to taxpayers requires policymakers and administrators to try to answer that question. Hence, they need to develop and analyze valid performance information about the outcomes that result from programmatic interventions for participants.

The Virginia Workforce Council approved and the Commonwealth’s legislature approved a set of performance indicators for the state’s workforce programs. In December 2006, the Commonwealth issued RFP 135CWWWFORCE to engage a consultant to compute six integrated indicators for nine programs. The six measures are as follows:

• Short-term employment rate
• Long-term employment rate
• Short-term earnings level
• Long-term earnings level
• Credential completion rate
• Repeat employer customers

The nine programs are as follows:

• Adult Education & Literacy (AEL)
• Employment Service/Wagner-Peyser (W/P)
• Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA)
• Food Stamp Employment & Training (FSET) Program
• Virginia Initiative for Employment Not Welfare – TANF/VIEW
• Vocational Rehabilitation programs administered by Department of Rehabilitative Services (DRS)
• Vocational Rehabilitation programs administered by Department for Blind and
Vision Impaired (DBVI)
• Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Title 1 Programs
• Carl Perkins Postsecondary Career and Technical Education (CTE)

The W.E. Upjohn Institute bid successfully for this contract, and this report documents the computations and the data processing that supported them.