Jindal’s key bill on move

• By MICHELLE MILLHOLLON
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: May 7, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:15 a.m.

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Work-force development — the key piece of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s legislative package — sailed through the state Senate Tuesday.

The Senate voted 36-0 to advance legislation that would rechristen the state Labor Department, consolidate the management of job training programs and give business leaders more input into the state’s work force efforts.

“It’s the cornerstone of the governor’s effort to reform work-force development in the state,” state Senate President Joel Chaisson II, D-Destrehan, told the Senate.

Virtually identical legislation, House Bill 1104, is awaiting debate in the House, possibly today.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers lined up to praise Senate Bill 612, which Jindal proclaimed would be his primary focus in the ongoing regular legislative session.

Jindal’s executive staff filled the governor’s reserved seats on the Senate sidelines for the debate on the bill. They sent notes to legislators and pulled some aside for chats before the vote.

By 2014, 55 percent of jobs will require a level of education that is more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year college degree, Chaisson said.

“The single most important step that we can take as a state is to close that training gap,” he said.

Businesses will leave Louisiana if they cannot find the workers they need, Chaisson said.

The Jindal administration estimates there are 100,000 vacant jobs in the state that businesses are unable to fill.

SB612 would change the name of the labor department to the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

The agency still would oversee unemployment and worker’s compensation programs while undertaking a larger management role in job training. Training programs now scattered across various state agencies would be brought under the commission’s oversight.

Regional centers would multitask by maintaining a menu of “help wanted” listings and services that may be vital to obtaining employment such as literacy, child care and housing programs.