Bill # and Title: SB 50 – Workforce Development: Career and Technical Education
Author: Sen. Doug Eckerty (R-Yorktown)
Summary: Establishes the Pell Grant Review Committee to study the requirements for the award of a Pell grant. Provides an income tax credit to an individual who relocates to Indiana to accept employment with an Indiana employer in a high demand, unfilled job. Establishes a state income tax credit for expenditures and donations made on behalf of an employee or student to meet the requirements for portable workforce credentials that are required or beneficial for targeted employment identified by the Department of Workforce Development. Creates the Commission for Technical Commission and requires the commission to identify workforce training programs that are underperforming and request that the budget agency reduce allotments for the program. Requires Ivy Tech Community College, in collaboration with Vincennes University, to develop a career coaching program to provide information and support to high school students and their parents to encourage and assist students. Requires the State Board of Education, when establishing an apprenticeship as a graduation pathway requirement, to establish as an apprenticeship program only an apprenticeship program registered under the federal National Apprenticeship Act or another federal apprenticeship program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor. …
Chamber Position: Support in Part/Oppose in Part
Status: Heard before the full Senate Appropriation Committee but held to the following week for further potential amendments and committee vote.
Update/Chamber Action: This is the Senate’s comprehensive workforce development bill this session. The Chamber is very supportive of both the employer training tax credit and the employee relocation tax credit embedded within this legislation as it provides both short-term and long-term solutions to skilling up our incumbent workforce and incentivizing potential out-of-state employees to move to Indiana to work and live. We also support the idea of the career counseling language, as the Chamber Foundation’s study in 2014 identified that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to devote enough time to career counseling. We have some concerns regarding the new commission created in the legislation as it seems duplicative and unnecessary, but appreciate that employers have a seat and a voice at the table. We look forward to working with the author of the bill as it moves forward.
Resource: Caryl Auslander at (317) 264-6880 or email: causlander@indianachamber.com
