Relates to the sharing of unemployment insurance information with public entities for certain purposes

Summary of provisions

Section 1 of the bill would amend § 537(3)(g) of the Labor Law to allow for the disclosure of unemployment insurance information to federal, state and local agencies, and their agents and contractors for the purpose of evaluation of program performance; improvement to the quality or delivery of program services; and, to meet additional administrative requirements. When the commissioner approves a requested disclosure of information for the purpose of a longitudal study, the Commissioner shall allow such information to be used for a specified period of time as provided for in the written agreement required by 20 CFR Part 603. Such agreement may only provide information to be used for a period of up to ten years but may be renewed for additional periods of time. Additionally, it would require the Commissioner to post electronically in a place accessable by the general public information for (i) the minimum conditions for granting a request, (ii) a standard application for unemployment insurance information, (iii) the timeframe for information requests and (iv) contact information for assistance with requests; require the Commissioner to enter into written agreements between the New York State Department Of Labor and public agencies in compliance with federal and state data confidentiality requirements and; require the Commissioner to provide a written explanation to any public agency that makes an information request but is denied in whole or in part.

Section II of the bill states that except for otherwise allowed in federal law or regulation or as otherwise authorized by agreement between the department and the United States Department of Labor, federal unemployment insurance grant funds shall not be used to pay for any of the costs incurred by the department in processing and handling a request. Costs paid shall be income of the state unemployment insurance program and shall only be used as permitted under the provision of applicable federal regulations.

Section III of the bill sets forth the effective date to be sixty days from the date of enactment.

Justification

Public agencies need consistent access to wage records to fully understand the impact of workforce development programs across the broadest range of funding streams. Analyzing data is a common sense approach to program evaluation since there is often a correlation between workforce programs and an increase in the likelihood of greater earnings, employer-based benefits, and job productivity.

Increased utilization of data also responds to recent developments in federal budget policy that push grant-making agencies like the U.S. Department of Labor to infuse evidence into their grant-making to state and local governments, including a mandate to demonstrate increased reliance on evidence in formula based and competitive grant programs.

Moreover, using evidence to improve these programs, which benefit the neediest members of our local communities, benefits the tax-base by increasing revenues derived from higher employment levels. Finally, public agencies need access to the information to satisfy certain administrative and legislative mandates, including workforce program accountability requirements enacted in the state budget agreed upon between the Governor and Legislature. To illustrate the impact of wage record access, consider Scholars @ Work; a collaboration between the NYC Department of Education (DOE) and the New York City Department of Small Business Services to provide internships to high school students in the transportation industry. The program was started in 2010 to provide graduating seniors with work experience and connections to employers in their field of study in order to increase graduates' employment opportunities and employment competitiveness. 125 students participated in a 144-week paid internship program at a wage of $7.25 an hour in the first three years of the program. Prior to these internships, the participants were full-time Career and Technical Education high school students in their senior year. After completing their internships, 43% of Scholars Work students have accepted full-time employment, being hired by the companies with which they interned or other businesses and positioning them for long-term employability and financial self-sufficiency. Even more students were offered jobs by their host companies bus chose to go to college instead. Without access to wage records, DOE cart only track Scholars @Work students through high school graduation, missing an opportunity to determine if there is long-term impact through the Scholars @ Work program.

Improved access to wage records would help to measure the effectiveness and long-term impact of the students' participation; demonstrate the return on investment of the program, by revealing improved earnings and employability of the participating students and demonstrate the value of the program and; understand a broader range of post-secondary pathways followed by Scholars @ Work students and help program administrators improve and develop new industry partnerships.

In order to effectively measure these outcomes, DOE would track program graduate wages and their placements in different industry sectors over a 3-5 year period following program participation, ideally against a comparison group of non-program students. Both types of information are contained in the wage records DOE wants to access and can be provided to DOE in unidentifiable unit level form.

With this information in hand, policymakers and program providers will have the best opportunity to make informed decisions about designing, improving, securing funding for, and benefiting from critically-needed public workforce programs.

Legislative history

This is a new bill in the Senate.

Fiscal impact to the state

None

Effective date

This act shall take effect sixty days from the date of enactment.