Reference: Older Worker Bulletin 97-5. Background: The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and the Administration on Aging (AoA) have joined together to assure that the special contributions of older workers are acknowledged. Traditionally, the month of May has been designated as Older Americans Month. This year our theme is Caregiving: Compassion in Action. First proclaimed Senior Citizens Month by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, May was later designated Older Americans Month by President Jimmy Carter. During this month, for over 30 years, the AoA has taken the lead in our Nation's celebration of the accomplishments of mature persons in all fields. This year, ETA is joining together with AoA to cosponsor a special celebration. On March 7, the President signed the 1997 Proclamation for National Older Workers Employment Week. Many SCSEP sponsors and State Employment Security Agencies (SESAs) were unable to use the Presidential Proclamation during the official week of March 9 - 15. Now, sponsors may wish to use the proclamation during the Older Americans Month celebration in activities initiated during National Older Workers Employment Week that continue stimulating the hiring of mature, experienced older workers. During the month of May, Americans celebrate the many accomplishments of mature persons in all fields. Included among those experienced workers are over 60,000 SCSEP participants nationwide. Although these exceptional people provide the bulk of their services to the community at large, many SCSEP workers demonstrate Compassion in Action by providing their expertise to the elderly in communities across the nation. Older Americans Month 1997 provides a great opportunity to focus on these and the many other positive contributions that SCSEP enrollees have made in the past as well as contributions they will continue to make in the future. The National Council on the Aging (NCOA) provided posters to the Department for National Older Workers Employment Week. Copies were distributed to you during March. If your organization needs additional copies of these posters, please contact NCOA at 202-479-1200. Actions Required: SCSEP sponsors should: a. Distribute copies of the attached Presidential Proclamation on National Older Workers Employment Week to local offices and program sponsors; b. Promote efforts to educate employers about the benefits of hiring, retraining and retaining mature workers; c. Undertake efforts to recognize the contributions made by mature workers; to facilitate and promote their continued participation in the workforce, e.g. through job fairs, older worker luncheons, news releases and radio and television public service announcements emphasizing the contributions of successful mature workers; d. Coordinate with State Employment Security Agency local offices, Job Training Partnership Act State Liaisons and Service Delivery Areas, the Governor's office and other SCSEP sponsors to further foster community efforts to recognize, promote and celebrate mature, experienced workers at the State and community levels; and e. Share successful experiences and examples of products developed that may be helpful to other programs.

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Background: As we move into the 21st Century, it is critical that the Employment and Training System explore new ways of meeting the needs of the increasing numbers of customers with disabilities who will require employment and training services. By the year 2000, one in five Americans will have some type of disability, due partly to the aging of the population. More significantly, especially for those of working age, greater numbers of people are surviving illness and injury and are expecting to resume work. While societal attitudes have improved, and there is greater acceptance of workers with disabilities, people with disabilities continue to experience widespread unemployment or underemployment. Current data indicate that seventy percent (70%) of those persons with severe disabilities of working age are unemployed; this translates into thirteen (13) million people. In October 1996, Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich referenced the One-Stop Disability Initiative when he announced "plans to turn the nation's One-Stop Career Centers into model facilities for providing access to millions of disabled Americans who are seeking work." The Secretary affirmed that the "goal of the One-Stop Centers is and should be to do everything possible to ensure that all Americans have equal access to re-employment services." He stressed that this goal can be achieved by ensuring that accessibility and services to persons with disabilities are "addressed at the very beginning -- while the One-Stop Centers are starting their operations." The Secretary's speech, along with the press release, is attached for your information. The One-Stop/LMI Office has long recognized that it is cost-effective to address issues related to serving persons with disabilities up front, when One-Stop Centers are being designed. To facilitate this process, ETA has established several work groups to address the various issues related to providing improved services to persons with disabilities. These work groups, which are inter-agency (including non-profit organizations), have initiated specific projects to facilitate improved services to persons with disabilities. ETA's One-Stop Disability Initiative: ETA established the One-Stop Disability Initiative in recognition of the fact that the One-Stop System presents unique challenges, as well as opportunities to provide improved services to persons with disabilities. As directed by the National Performance Review, all agencies are being challenged to develop innovative approaches to provide high quality services. While ETA is integrating this emphasis on improved services to persons with disabilities into all aspects of the One-Stop system-building initiative, it has initiated the following projects to address specific issues: A. Establishment of DOL/ED Work Group. DOL and the Department of Education (ED) have established a standing work group of National Office staff from ED and DOL to foster a productive partnership between One-Stop and Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) at the State and local levels. The work group has identified several activities that it may ultimately sponsor to promote collaboration between Vocational Rehabilitation and the One-Stop Career Center System. On February 28, 1997, Assistant Secretary Timothy Barnicle and Judith Heuman, Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, signed a joint issuance to advise the employment and training system and the vocational rehabilita-tion system of this cooperative relationship. DOL and ED worked together to organize a one-day facilitated discussion session for six Directors of State Vocational Rehabilitation agencies and six Leads for State One-Stop Career Center Systems. These discussions were held on April 24, 1997. The findings from these discussions will assist ED and DOL in identifying: (1) strategies for collaboration that are working well and those that are less than satisfactory, with some insight as to why; and (2) areas where policy clarification or technical assistance may facilitate collaboration. B. Cooperative Agreement on WOTC. One of the several eligible target groups for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) are people with disabilities that have completed, or are in the process of completing, an Individual Written Rehabilitation Plan through the State VR agency. ETA is developing a cooperative agreement with the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), within ED, to provide conditional certification of recipients of vocational rehabilitation services. Under conditional certification, a State VR agency verifies that a client is eligible for the WOTC to a potential employer using a simplified form and without prior referral to the Employment Service for certification. C. Agreement with SSA. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has provided ETA funds to (1) review, in consultation with SSA, the return-to-work program and its relationship to the One-Stop Career Center System; and (2) explore the integration of appropriate information and employment-related activities of the return-to-work program into the One-Stop System. ETA awarded a grant to North Carolina to complete this study; North Carolina subsequently contracted with the Technical Assistance and Training Corporation (TATC). TATC has developed a study design and is in the process of conducting preliminary surveys. ETA will share the results of this study with the employment and training system upon completion. D. Cooperative Agreement with Maine. ETA has provided funds to Maine through a State Cooperative Agreement to (1) enable Maine to design One-Stop models of inclusion and access, which can be replicated in other States and local One-Stop Centers; and (2) provide technical assistance to interested States and local One-Stop Cent ers. E. Access Work Group. ETA has formed an access work group to address access issues in the One-Stop System, particularly with regard to the technology intensive self-service areas. The initial focus of this work group has been making the computerized self-service areas accessible to persons with visual impairments. The work group will subsequently concentrate on ensuring that self-service functions are accessible to persons with mobility and hearing impairments as well as persons with other disabilities. The National Federation for the Blind (NFB) has developed a voice response access system to America's Job Bank (AJB). This system, when implemented, will provide a means for job search using the touch-tone system to command the AJB to provide information on appropriate job openings by voice. The NFB is continuing to refine this prototype system so that it can be used to develop access to other One-Stop/LMI technologies and self-service functions for the visually impaired. The universal design feature of this prototype may potentially provide access to other customer segments, such as persons with cognitive disabilities and persons in sparsely populated rural areas. F. Self-Evaluation Access Guide. ETA, with the assistance of the Director of the Department's Initiative For Persons With Disabilities, is developing a self-evaluation guide. The Guide is being developed, in part, by adapting AmeriCorp's Checklist (Self-Evaluation Guide) and various State self-evaluation guides submitted to the National Office for this purpose. It is anticipated that this Self-Evaluation Access Guide will enable One-Stop Career Centers to conduct thorough self-evaluations and, where appropriate, transition plans. The Guide will assist local Centers to assess what has been done to facilitate equal opportunity for people with disabilities and to plan what needs to be done in the future. The Guide will encourage One-Stop Centers to request representatives of the disability community to assist in the self-evaluation. Action Required. States are asked to distribute this TEIN, with attachments, to all staff involved with the One-Stop Career Center System. This includes partnering agencies, especially those with a particular interest in disability inclusion such as Vocational Rehabilitation. With regard to the cooperative agreement with Maine (3. D. above), ETA welcomes suggestions from States and One-Stop Centers as to what types of models or technical assistance, including training, would be helpful.

Background: In the Solicitation for Grant Application (SGA) for One-Stop Implementation, ETA provided four broad principles to guide the States in the development of their One-Stop Career Center Systems. The Federal design outlined in the SGA is not prescriptive and provides considerable flexibility to the States. The conduct of One-Stop Career Center system operations is left to the direction of State and local partners. In order to define (within this broad Federal framework) what their State systems would look like, many States have developed certification or chartering criteria that specify the types of planning processes to be followed, the services to be offered, and how services are to be delivered in a One-Stop environment. The chartering or certification process has been critical to the States in meeting their responsibility to guide and oversee the development of local One-Stop Centers. In March 1996, several One-Stop Implementation States requested that ETA conduct a formal study to determine how the States were approaching the certification or chartering of local One-Stop Centers. States differed greatly in how they were approaching the development of these criteria and the application of the criteria in determining when a facility should be certified as a One-Stop Center. Thus, ETA contracted with Social Policy Research Associates (SPR) to perform a study on State certification and chartering efforts for One-Stop Centers. Certification/Chartering and Accessibility For Persons with Disabilities: Particularly noteworthy is that adequacy of facility is one of the critical areas identified by the States in their One-Stop certification policies. Many States and some local Workforce Investment Boards are using a certification or chartering process to ensure that One-Stop Centers are fully accessible to customers with disabilities. These States recognize that the certification process is a good vehicle for ensuring that all local One-Stop Centers are in compliance with the requirements of Section 504 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and applicable State laws related to accessibility for persons with disabilities. The Report: The attached report prepared by SPR consists of two parts: Part I is a narrative that compares and contrasts the certification criteria established by the States and reflects on the States' varied experiences with certification requirements. It also provides information from the States about what they have learned, including ideas about what they might have done differently; and Part II is a matrix that documents the certification criteria and approaches of the twelve (12) States selected for this study. The States selected were Arizona, Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin. In addition, SPR has attached to Part I samples of documents that are being used by several States in the certification process. Action Required: This information should be shared with all State and local staff working with One-Stop implementation. This study should be of interest to all States, but especially those States just beginning the implementation process.

Background and Information: The Significant Local Offices and Bilingual Offices, PY 1997 list (Enclosure B, Section VI, Table 4) provides data which indicates the local offices where Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers comprise 10 percent or more of the total new or renewal applications. Action Required: State Liaisons are requested to replace the Table 4 attached to TEGL 4-95, Ch. 3 with the attached updated Table 4.

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References: The Wagner-Peyser Act, as amended (P.L. 97-300); 20 CFR 652; TEGL No. 4-95 and TEGL No. 4-95 Changes 1 - 4. Background: The Secretary of Labor is issuing final planning allotments for each State's share of PY 1997 funds for basic labor exchange activities. These allotments (Attachment I) are based on the FY 1997 appropriation of $761,735,000 and are distributed by the statutory formula described in Section 6 of the Act. The allotments will be published in the Federal Register. The data used are Calendar Year 1996 averages of civilian labor force (CLF) and number of unemployed individuals. Section 6(b)(4) of the Act authorizes the Secretary of Labor to reserve up to 3 percent of the total fund availability to assure that each State will have sufficient resources to maintain statewide employment service (ES) activities. The setaside for distribution through an administrative formula for this program year is $22,312,050. The 3 percent distribution is included in the total final allotment. The setaside was distributed in two steps to States whose relative share of resources declined from the previous year. In Step 1, those States with a CLF below one million and that are also below the median CLF density were held harmless at 100 percent of their prior year relative share of resources. The remainder was distributed in Step 2 in pro rata shares to all other States that lost in relative share from the prior year but did not meet the size criteria for Step 1. Ten percent of the total sums allotted to each State shall be reserved for use by the Governor to provide performance incentives for public ES offices; services for groups with special needs; and for the extra costs of exemplary models for delivering job services. Differences between preliminary and final planning estimates are caused by the use of Calendar Year data as opposed to the earlier data used for preliminary planning estimates. Postage Costs: Postage costs incurred by States during the conduct of ES activities are billed directly to the Department of Labor by the U.S. Postal Service. The total planning estimate does not include $18,000,000 of the total amount available, which is withheld for the payment of the States' ES penalty mail costs.

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Average Weekly Benefit Amount (AWBA) Utilization: As required by 20 CFR 625.6, the attached listing sets forth the 50 percent of AWBA computation applicable for major disasters declared during the third quarter of FY 1997, from April 1 through June 30, 1997. Action Required: SESA Administrators are requested to provide this information to appropriate staff and insure that the correct AWBA is utilized in determining the weekly DUA amount.

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