Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board

In response to the funding that is being made available to local workforce investment areas through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA), the Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board puts forward this document which is the framework of its plan for funding priorities. The enactment of the ARRA will nearly double the amount of workforce funds available in our workforce investment area.

As a result, we will be able to serve many more adults, especially customers who are collecting public assistance; many more dislocated workers, including a greater number of unemployment compensation (UC) claimants; and many more youth, especially during the summer months. We believe that strategically we must maximize the efforts on behalf of our fellow citizens to provide them with training and placement services that will get them back to work as quickly as jobs become available. By dramatically increasing the number of customers we serve, we will help to stimulate the economy. At the same time, we have the opportunity to build out our existing system to increase the depth and breadth of what we do. Any plan must keep both priorities in mind.

Over the next three months, we expect to be able to be much more specific about the number of people that we plan to serve in each of our service categories. We anticipate a significant public relations push in that time frame which should allow us to have a better sense of how people will use the expanded and new services that we outline below. Our new schedule of all programming will kick off in early May 2009.