Major economic development legislation passes Senate

Senate President Jack Kibbie of Emmetsburg

Senate President Jack Kibbie’s prepared opening remarks on Senate File 2024, the Community College Worker Training Bill

SF 2024 Bill Summary

Identify skilled job shortages. Help Iowans fill them.

Those are the two most important things we can do right now to help the Iowa economy grow, and help unemployed Iowans. As Iowa businesses have been telling us for years, skilled job shortages prevent our economy from growing and creating jobs. That’s why Forbes says Iowa is 40th when it comes to ready labor supply.

For example, Iowa agricultural manufacturers are doing great. But they would do even better if they could find and hire more than 500 skilled welders. That particular skilled worker shortage is stopping businesses in need of welders from increasing sales, hiring more Iowans, and pumping more money into the Iowa economy. And when it comes to IT specialists, Iowa businesses in almost every field can’t find enough. These businesses want to expand in Iowa, but they can’t find the people they need to run the computers and manage the software.

When Iowa employers can’t find the skilled workers they need in Iowa, here are their choices:

Lose business to their competitors;
Hire people in some other state or some other country to do the work;
Move the heck out of Iowa.

Those are all bad choices.

So, step one, identifying skilled job shortages.

Iowa Workforce Development has much of this information. And Iowa’s community colleges already work closely with the local businesses in their areas to identify skill shortages.

Step two, helping Iowans fill those job shortages. It is time to ask our nationally-recognized community colleges to do more, not less when it comes to workforce training.

Successful pilot programs prove Iowa’s community colleges are the right places for prepare Iowans to fill skilled job openings.

The legislation before us calls for a three year, 20 million dollar a year, investment in expanding workforce training at our community colleges.

12 million of those dollars will fund current workforce training programs. 6 million of those dollars will provide Skilled Workforce Shortage Tuition Grants. When students working to fill local workforce shortage areas exhaust other sources of funding, these grants will be available.

2 million of those dollars will fund GAP and PACE, programs approved last year but not funded. The Gap Assistance Program “fills the gap” by funding non-credit programs to earn recognized certificates and professional licenses, classes which do not qualify for federal student financial aid. PACE, the Pathways for Academic Career and Employment, coordinates efforts to help returning students and identifies local job openings.

This is a two-step economic development plan of proven effectiveness that:

One, identifies skilled job shortages.

Two, helps Iowans fill them.

Iowa businesses want Senate File 2024 because the shortage of skilled workers holds Iowa’s economy back. Iowa moms and dads want Senate File 2024 because they want to do more for their families.

Identify skilled job shortages.

Help Iowans fill them.

That’s the proven approach I’m asking you to support today in order to grow Iowa’s economy and help create jobs in our state.