House and Senate Democrats are looking at diverting as much as $28 million from the unemployment insurance trust fund into a new worker retraining program.
The figure came out Tuesday.in a news conference in which Democratic lawmakers outlined their agenda for higher education.
The lawmakers are pushing Senate Bill 5809 to create the program retraining middle-income workers so they are employable in high demand fields such as nursing and health sciences.
About 6,200 people could be served at a cost of $28 million in the next biennium, estimated Sen. Derek Kilmer, chairman of the Senate Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee. The bill is getting reworked to clarify where the money will come from. As originally drafted, lawmakers planned to skim a little from the increase in benefit payments approved by Gov. Chris Gregoire on Monday when she signed House Bill 1906 into law. From the Senate Bill Report:
If ESHB 1906 passes and additional unemployment compensation is made available through the United States Department of Labor, then the additional $45 benefit outlined in ESHB 1906 would be reduced to $35.
On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown said that won’t happen. Gregoire did too. > Give us your news tips. > Send us a letter to the editor. > More Herald contact information.Talk to us
