While Gov. Phil Murphy did conditionally veto a trio of bills on Monday to bring more stability to the New Jersey Pathways for Career Opportunities Initiative and increase workforce training, the changes were accepted by the Legislature and returned to the governor’s desk for signature.
“We are supportive of these three bills that were a part of the opportunity agenda for the New Jersey Council of County Colleges,” said NJBIA Vice President of Government Affairs Althea D. Ford said.
“Through these bills, the transformative work of the NJCCC to impact workforce development will be codified and initiatives to streamline workforce development investments.”
“We thank the sponsors and supporters of this bill for working to get it back to the governor’s desk,” Ford said.
Bill A-5211/S-4203 (Miller, Freiman, Peterpaul/Cryan, Zwicker) codifird the work of the New Jersey Career Pathways to Opportunities Initiative and strengthen the operation and impact of New Jersey’s community college system.
In his conditional veto of the bill, Gov. Murphy said while he supported the “legislation’s aim of strengthening the community college to employment pipeline,” he also recommended an amendment to remove a mandate in the bill to have the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development promote and support the initiative.
Bill A-5213/S-4012 (Venezia, Atkins, Reynolds-Jackson/Zwicker, Singleton) establishes the “New Economy Opportunity Skills System Pilot Program” to strengthen alignment and collaboration between local workforce development boards and community colleges, and county vocational school districts.
In doing so, the bill would require the State Employment and Training Commission to establish the New Economy Opportunity Skills System Pilot Program, which would seek to develop and implement workforce training focused on industry-recognized credentials.
In his CV, however, Murphy questioned whether the bill drafted was administratively feasible, as, he said “the SETC does not engage in the type of program administration assigned to it in this bill.”
Instead, Murphy encouraged that the bill be redrawn to replace the SETC as overseers with the Division of Workforce Development within the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
Lastly, bill A-5183/S-4009 (Drulis, Verrelli, Sampson/Zwicker, Cryan) directs NJDOLWD to develop and maintain a list of industry-valued credential list as a common-sense strategy to keep the State connected with job creators to understand their credentialing needs.
It also established an objective metric to demonstrate how the state is currently meeting industry training needs.
In his CV, Murphy said NJDOLWD is already required by law to maintain a statewide list of approved training providers known as the State Eligible Training Provider List and only providers on that list are eligible to receive federal and State job training funding.
Murphy said to avoid confusion with current law he recommended making the Department’s maintenance of the list permissive rather than mandatory.
