Sunnyvale City Council Authorizes Layoff of 18 NOVA Staff
SUNNYVALE, Calif. – At its April 1 meeting, Sunnyvale City Council approved a reduced budget for its Department of Employment Development, also known as NOVA. The budget modification, necessary due to continuing budgetary constraints, will result in the reduction of 18 currently filled positions, effective June 2.
NOVA (North Valley Job Training Consortium) is funded entirely through federal, state and foundation grants, with the primary resources coming from the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). The City of Sunnyvale administers NOVA on behalf of a consortium of seven northern Santa Clara County cities: Cupertino, Los Altos, Milpitas, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale. On December 26, 2007 President Bush signed PL 110-161, concurring with Congress to rescind $300 million from WIA funding for this year and last year. These funds had, by and large, already been obligated to the state and local areas, and NOVA had planned for almost 100 percent of its funds to be spent this fiscal year. In mid-February, NOVA began temporary Friday closures of all of its job-seeker and business services in an effort to achieve savings to cover the estimated rescission cost of $300,000.
Due to arcane funding formulas, there is an overall decreasing amount of federal funding available to the State of California. This means there’s less to allocate among California’s 49 local workforce investment areas, including NOVA, and in fact the agency’s WIA funding has declined by 45 percent over the past three years. NOVA and many other workforce areas were already stretched thin even before the rescissions were announced.
According to NOVA director Mike Curran, the continued trend in declining funding from the federal government to the state, coupled with the anticipated impact of a state budget deficit, means that NOVA can no longer afford to sustain the organization at its current staffing levels. NOVA plans to re-open on Fridays in mid-May, once the exact rescission amount is known, but the closures weren’t enough to close the widening budget gap.
Curran stated, “With this reduction in staffing resources, combined with the increased demand for services, NOVA’s next challenge will be to redesign and reengineer our programs to continue to be relevant to the needs of our job seekers and businesses.”
The 18 NOVA staff members, who are all permanent City of Sunnyvale employees, were given 60 days notice of the impending layoffs, and will be provided with approximately three months of paid healthcare coverage following their separation.
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About NOVA:
NOVA (North Valley Job Training Consortium) is a nonprofit, federally-funded organization dedicated to providing innovative, high-quality, customer-focused workforce development services. NOVA works closely with local businesses, educators and job seekers to ensure that its programs provide opportunities that build the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to address the workforce needs of Silicon Valley. For more information about NOVA, please visit www.novaworks.org.