Senator Cassis, under her constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the passage of Senate Bill No. 608.
Senator Cassis’ statement is as follows:
We do have a question for the honorable Senator from Allegan, and that is, does that make you a grandma or a nana?
On a very important issue, I would like to express my “no” vote on Senate Bill No. 608. As you know, Senate Bill No. 608 is a supplemental, and it allows for ARRA money to be used toward job training. In as much as it is only one-time money, that raises concerns on its own. I would like to add that it is very interesting that, just within the last few days, DELEG, who oversees the job training programs and workforce training programs in our state, conveniently released a report. On the surface, it looks very optimistic that 72 percent of all the job training activities between August 2007 and February 2009 that job placement has been at a record rate of 72 percent. Again, that is very optimistic, and we hope it is accurate. I would then really suggest and recommend that this report be backed up by an objective investigation with specific, supportive references in order to verify the claims that are being made.
Further, I would recommend that our Auditor General actually become involved and do an audit of the workforce training programs and No Worker Left Behind. Up until now, there has been no realistic evaluation measurement of these programs. Included in here, as you may remember, are dollars for film training in the film industry. As you know, we are seeing certain promises about jobs coming from those training programs actually fall through.
As of late, we are watching very closely what is happening with Unity Studios in Allen Park. WXYZ Channel 7 out of Detroit has reported some very interesting findings, and it seems that sometimes legislators are being blamed for individuals who can’t quite get the investment dollars needed to go ahead. We hope these job training programs really will result in jobs because all of those people who are expecting to have employment deserve to have that expectation realized. There are concerns about this area of robust training in the film industry and whether or not there will be jobs.
I raise these issues, and again, I am going to ask that the Auditor General very shortly investigate this whole arena.