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One of the most powerful forces in Louisiana politics thinks it has the solution, or at least part of the solution, to the state’s workforce woes. But it will need help to make it happen.

The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry is in the process of crafting legislation that would restructure the state’s workforce development system from top to bottom. Blueprint Louisiana is in the mix with its own ideas, so the big question is whether Gov. Bobby Jindal will be on board by the time the regular session kicks off March 31.

“I’m hoping the governor will assume this as part of his package,” says Jim Patterson, LABI’s vice president of government relations.

Patterson says they don’t have a bill to share with the world quite yet. But LABI wants to replace the state Department of Labor and its cabinet-level secretary with a commission led by three people representing labor, business and the public, and the hodgepodge of state worker development programs would be brought under their authority.

The governor would appoint the commissioners, who would serve staggered six-year terms to provide continuity across administrations. The commission would make policy, and appoint an executive director to handle the day-to-day operations. The five offices that currently make up the Department of Labor would remain intact, subject to reorganization by the executive.

Philosophically, the customers of the system, so to speak, would be the state’s businesses—not the workers looking for jobs. Currently, employers are asked to accept the workers in the pipeline. If they didn’t fit your needs, you are pretty much out of luck. Few businesses bother to use the system, Patterson says.

Under LABI’s proposal, the state’s 18 regional workforce investment boards, which don’t have a lot of authority under the current system, would be empowered to assess local needs and come up with solutions and outcome measurements that make sense for them. The commission would oversee the boards and approve their initiatives according to general policy outlines, but the whole system would function from the bottom up on the theory that local folks best understand local needs.

By law, the majority of WIB members come from the private sector, but often the prominent CEOs in an area don’t want to waste their time sitting through the meetings. That could change if the boards actually have the ability to make a difference. But with great power comes great responsibility.

“This can only work if the business community stays engaged and insists local officials appoint quality people to these boards,” Patterson says. “I’ve talked to local officials who are not happy with the board they’ve got.”

But if just one of those WIBs hits a home run, he says, everyone will want their local board to do the same.

LABI’s proposal is largely based on the Texas Workforce Commission, which was established in 1995. Before, the Lone Star State had 28 workforce programs under 10 separate agencies and, like Louisiana’s current system, it was severely underutilized.

“That’s pretty bad when it’s free and nobody uses it,” says Larry Temple (right), the TWC’s executive director who jokes that his primary job is keeping at least two of the three TWC commissioners happy at all times. He says about 26,000 employers were using the old Texas system; about 180,000 businesses now are TWC customers. In his recent address at LABI’s annual meeting, he urged the well-heeled crowd to step up.

“If you’re not involved with your local WIB, get involved,” he said. “You’re paying for it, use it. Demand to get your money’s worth.”

Jindal’s support will be crucial, both to smooth over the potential turf battles with agencies that don’t want to give up programs, and to motivate local officials to jump on board, Patterson says.

Blueprint Louisiana has put forth three workforce proposals as part of its overall reform agenda released last summer: take advantage of the maturing Louisiana Community and Technical College System by making it responsible for the delivery of all workforce training in the state, establish industry-specific “centers of excellence” that would translate research into practical training programs and create a $10 million to $15 million “rapid response” fund to pay for mass training in a specific industry if the need arises. A similar fund was created to provide free training for construction workers through LCTCS in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Blueprint officials have met with LABI, and both groups say their proposals mesh well. Say a local WIB identifies a need; the local community college could provide the training to meet that need.

“We know we’re together on a lot of the basic ideas,” says Rudy Gomez, a Blueprint Louisiana project manager. “Hopefully we’ll both wind up in the same place” with the same bill, he says.

“As always the devil is in the details,” Secretary of Labor Tim Barfield says. But he says that, in principle, the proposals fit will with the Jindal administration’s views and with the internal measures the department is already taking. “We’ll know a lot more in the coming weeks. But I haven’t met with anybody who doesn’t have a passion for this project to be successful.”

And Barfield didn’t seem concerned with the fact that LABI’s proposal might eliminate his position. “I want to do the right thing, whether my job goes away, becomes another job, or goes to someone else.”