December 14, 1999

Through the leadership of the City of Sunnyvale, in 1983 the North Valley (NOVA) Job Training Consortium and Private Industry Council (PIC) were formed to offer programs and services in the cities of Palo Alto, Los Altos, Mountain View, Cupertino, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara funded by the Job Training Partnership Act of 1982.

The six-cities formed a Joint Powers Agreement, with Sunnyvale assuming financial liability for the program and the right to speak for the consortium. Sunnyvale City Council and the PIC selected the City of Sunnyvale to serve as the administrative entity, staffing both the program and the PIC through its Department of Employment Development.

In 1998, Congress passed the Workforce Investment Act. It becomes operational in California on July 1, 2000, and replaces the JTPA legislation. If the City of Sunnyvale and the other consortium cities are willing to comply with the new requirements of WIA and to renew the Joint Powers Agreement that constitutes the consortium, NOVA has the right to continue to receive funding through the Workforce Investment Act.

In addition, in Santa Clara County, both the City of San José and the balance of Santa Clara County not covered by NOVA or the City of San José have the right to be designated as Workforce Investment Areas.

Increasingly, workforce development issues and opportunities are more regional in nature, crossing over the geopolitical lines of cities and counties. Recognizing this fact, the private industry councils serving the region often partner on major projects such as youth employment, welfare-to-work reform, labor market and industry studies, developing better strategies to improve our residents' competitiveness for our employers' workforce needs, addressing skill gaps for emerging occupations, and helping businesses manage workforce reductions.

The implementation of WIA has provided the opportunity to explore the formation of a more formal regional collaborative to build a more comprehensive workforce development system.

Although the Sunnyvale City Council and NOVA PIC are equal partners under JTPA, the PIC has traditionally taken the lead in analyzing the issues and recommending actions. To this end, the NOVA PIC created a PIC to WIB Transition Task Force to recommend actions for the City of Sunnyvale to consider in the implementation of WIA. This Task Force requested staff to meet with the City of San José, the Silicon Valley PIC, the County of Santa Clara, and the State of California to explore governance options that would capitalize on our existing strengths, expand the quality and quantity of services available to our job seekers and business, and capitalize on larger economies of scale. The Task Force has analyzed the feasibility of the various options against three criteria:

The task force reported its conclusions back to the full NOVA PIC at a public meeting conducted December 1, 1999. At that time, the NOVA PIC adopted a recommendation to the Sunnyvale City Council that it explore with the City of San José, the County of Santa Clara and the consortium cities a countywide Workforce Investment Act initiative.

If these entities do not support a regional approach that is acceptable to the City of Sunnyvale, then the NOVA PIC recommends the City of Sunnyvale still explore expanding the consortium to other North Valley/West Valley cities (Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Campbell, Saratoga and Los Altos Hills), and implement WIA with its own Workforce Investment Board.

Prepared by:

Michael J. Curran, Director
Department of Employment Development

Approved by:

Robert S. LaSala
City Manager