Report 2021-101 Recommendation 3 Responses

Report 2021-101: K-12 Strong Workforce Program: State and Regional Administrative Shortcomings Limit the Program's Effectiveness in Supporting Grant Applicants (Release Date: February 2022)

Recommendation #3 To: Community Colleges Chancellor's Office

To ensure that all applicants can make informed decisions when applying for workforce grants, beginning with the fiscal year 2022-23 grant application period, the Chancellor's Office should request selection committees to determine—before the Chancellor's Office issues the RFA—how they will address requests for funding that exceed the total amount they are allocated and to inform the Chancellor's Office of their decision and any selection criteria they will use so that it can include this information in the RFA.

1-Year Agency Response

Implementation complete.

For Round 5, each K12 Selection Committee has created criteria for award decisions. Each Selection Committee made decisions based on the merits of the proposed projects, proportionality of the request, and alignment with the intent of legislation, funding applications that best met the priorities of the region as set by the regional plan and local labor market demand. If the total amount requested was higher than the region's allocation, funding decisions were made by each regional selection committee. The decision-making criteria for Round 5 can be found through the following links:

- Bay Area - Round 5 Regional Criteria

- Central/Mother Lode - Round 5 Regional Criteria

- Inland Empire/Desert - Round 5 Regional Criteria

- Los Angeles - Round 5 Regional Criteria

- Orange County - Round 5 Regional Criteria

- North/Far North - Round 5 Regional Criteria

- San Diego/Imperial Counties - Round 5 Regional Criteria

- South Central Coast - Round 5 Regional Criteria

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

The Chancellor's Office's efforts resulted in each selection committee providing a description of its selection criteria, which should allow applicants to make better informed decisions when applying for workforce grants.

6-Month Agency Response

The Chancellor's Office will ensure each regional selection committee criteria for funding is included in the RFA and will ensure these criteria are transparent for applicant(s).

When requests for funding exceed the regionally allocated amount(s), the Chancellors Office will engage with the regional consortia and selection committee(s) during deliberations. The Round 5 RFA will include links to each region's selection committee criteria describing the process for allocating funding as described below:

Each regional Selection Committee will make decisions based on the merits of the proposed project, proportionality of the request, and alignment with the intent of legislation, funding applications that best meet the priorities of the region as set by the regional plan and local labor market demand. If the total amount requested is higher than the region's allocation, funding decisions will be made with the following in mind and a funding formula may be used to allocate excess funds.

The number of requests, size of request/s, number of students/teachers impacted, impact of the project.

How the application addresses a labor demand and identifies/demonstrates a gap in filling the demand.

How the application includes sectors and/or pathways with high wage earning potential and opportunity to reach and/or exceed a living wage.

Objectives and work plan lead to metrics that can be measured through data.

Objectives and work plan describe efforts to close equity gaps by improving access to and completion of high-skill/high-wage CTE opportunities for disproportionately impacted students.

Demonstrates clear outcomes that lead to post secondary and living wage jobs.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

We are encouraged that the Chancellor's Office plans to ensure that the RFA will make selection criteria transparent for applicants. We look forward to determining if the implementation of this recommendation clearly communicates the details of each regional selection committee's actual methodology for using allocation criteria or selection criteria at the time of the one-year response.

60-Day Agency Response

The California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office agrees with the recommendation and will work with the Regional Consortia to ensure that a standardized process is developed and included in the RFA - This task will be implemented by August 2022

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

We look forward to reviewing the Chancellor's Office's documentation of how it has addressed this recommendation in its 6-month response.

All Recommendations in 2021-101

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.