Andrew Powell
A bill seeking to improve access to workforce education programs and better align education systems with economic needs is now ready for the House floor.
The bill (HB 1145) from Port St. Joe Republican Rep. Jason Shoaf earned unanimous support at its final stop in front of the House Education & Employment Committee.
In presenting the bill, Shoaf explained that the legislation would allow charter schools to access funds through the Workforce Development Capitalization Incentive Grant Program to support career and technical education programs and increase the number of money-back programs offered by higher education institutions.
“House Bill 1145 clarifies that public charter schools can receive funds from the CAP Grant Program; it also increases the number of programs the college system must offer as a money-back program from three to six,” Shoaf said. “Finally, it gives uniformity to the institutions on how they determine if a student is eligible to receive their money-back program, while still allowing them to tailor it to best serve their students.”
West Palm Beach Democratic Rep. Tae Edmonds asked whether the grant program is currently only for public schools. Shoaf said current language is too broad, and this is where he feels there needs to be clarity in the law. Shoaf added that the program was never intended to exclude public charter schools from the program.
Edmonds then asked if there would be more funding added to accommodate all that might apply to the program.
“Currently we’re sitting at around $100 million recurring for this program,” Shoaf said in response. “That is a tremendous investment from the state. If the budget committee sees fit to increase it, I’m sure they can. I would be supportive. At this time that is not part of this bill though.”
Eligibility for tuition reimbursement on Florida College System money-back program courses includes attendance, program performance, participation in internships and job search documentation.
Gainesville Democratic Rep. Yvonne Hinson asked how the bill would align education programs with Florida’s labor market.
Shoaf said it doesn’t, but said there is another group that ranks different programs according to highest wage.
“Currently we have a requirement that these institutions provide three courses to where the students are able to go, attend the course, hopefully graduate and then go get a career,” Shoaf said.
“It is incentive for the institutions to offer courses that lead to a high-wage career, otherwise they’re kind of shooting themselves in the foot. And so far, we haven’t had any of our programs have to refund the money, because they’re doing a great job at incentivizing those programs.”
Hinson asked if a student completed the requirements and got a job offer, whether they would then get a refund or they would get a refund for just completing the requirements.
Shoaf said that there is a reason they are trying to bring uniformity to these programs, stating that one college had set an unachievable goal for students.
“The reason we’re bringing the uniformity here is, as it stands today, we only have the requirements that they get a job or have to get their money back,” Shoaf said. “Broward College was one in particular, not sure the thinking, but they added a requirement on there that you had to do 100 interviews. Nobody does 100 interviews.”
Shoaf said the bill is only meant to give clarity, and while colleges would be able to tailor their programs to their needs, they are not able to make the requirements any more stringent than what is required of an individual accessing the Florida unemployment system.
“We just said, look, let’s give them some clarity,” Shoaf said.
“We want to make sure everybody understands where we’re coming from. And so what we’ve said in this bill is that they can tailor it to their needs, what they see fit, but they cannot be any more stringent than our current requirements for the Florida unemployment system. Still want to give them that choice, but you can’t go worse than that. Folks, this is a solid step towards helping Florida students achieve great, meaningful careers.”
