Mississippi Works ... at snail’s pace

Workforce training opportunities for low-income and underemployed Mississippians existed long before the Coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. Despite efforts by the state’s economic development and business leaders, in the last few years, to consolidate workforce development information, officials still don’t know the scope of taxpayer-funded training happening, officials told Mississippi Today. In a state with one of the lowest median household incomes in the nation (< $45,000), leaders have pointed to workforce development as the answer to raising earnings and curbing poverty. Former Gov. Phil Bryant’s Mississippi Works Training Fund was established in 2016 when the Legislature allocated $50M over 10 years. It was designed to assist the state’s 15 community colleges, and workforce training. The program is administered by the Mississippi Development Authority (MDA). By March, after nearly four years, the state had spent less than 10 percent (about $4.7M). The legislature allocated $1M of fund monies in 2019 to the Mississippi Works Apprenticeship pilot program. None of the money had been spent by March, according to MDA documents. Excluding $607,000 spent on the tuition assistance Career Tech Scholars program, almost 80 percent of funds spent have been concentrated in East Mississippi, which has a Black population of 31 percent. The Delta and southwest quadrant, which includes Jackson, has received $235,590 and $719,285 (respectively). The Black population is nearly 60 percent. The state awarded nearly $12M of the Mississippi Works fund by March. Some grants remain open, but others have closed before workforce partners used the funding. The first to receive Mississippi Works grants in 2016 were the Furniture Academy ($250,000) and Mississippi State University engineers ($169.751) - only a little over a third of which had been spent by March 2020. Furniture Academy ($119,541) and MSU engineers ($46,795). In July, the legislature allocated $55M of its $1.25B CARES Act pandemic relief to a workforce development program called ReSkillMS. About $5M will go to employers through payroll subsidies. Most of the rest will go to community colleges to build their training capacity. All CARES money must be spent by the end of 2020. In the meantime, Mississippi has the third smallest workforce participation rate in the country - behind West Virginia and Kentucky. Under 54 percent of Mississippi’s working-age population was working or looking for work in July, up from 52 percent in April. In February, Mississippi had the single lowest workforce participation rate at under 56 percent compared to the national rate of about 64 percent. Mississippi Works allocations were to 33 companies between 2016-20. Among a few, funding was provided for Ashley Robotic Training in Lee/Ponotoc counties (allocation: $46,500; spent: $0); General Atomics in Lee County (allocation: $510,000; spent: $0); and Weir/ESCO in Newton County (allocation: $102,000; spent: $75). (Source: Mississippi Today 08/28/20) https://mississippitoday.org/2020/08/28/mississippi-works-four-years-later-state-has-used-just-one-tenth-of-50-million-workforce-fund/