Washington Manufacturing Council discusses 2024 legislative session

OLYMPIA — Washington state’s Manufacturing Council convened for their regular meeting Dec. 14 to discuss what legislation they would opt to support and introduce during the incoming legislative session. 

The council was formed in 2022 in response to the passing of the Building Economic Strength Through Manufacturing (BEST) Act in 2021 which, according to a June 2022 press release by the Washington State Department of Commerce, provides a framework for the state to add 300,000 new manufacturing jobs over the next 10 years. The BEST Act also seeks to double the number of small manufacturing firms, and the number of manufacturing firms owned by women and minorities.

Commerce Workforce Innovation Sector Lead Carolyn Busch explained that the meeting was to agree on the basic concepts the council would introduce, not specific legislative language.

“The idea that we're going to be able to get through all these lists and make a lot of language changes right now does not seem realistic to me in the time we have,” Busch said. “Then I'm going to need to be approving the budget proviso language as well (later).”

The list Busch referred to included the four draft items the council discussed potentially moving forward with. The first two list items included expanding access to short-term certificate programs in secondary and post-secondary settings and for incumbent workers in the workplace, advocating for incumbent worker and work-based learning programs and expanding the educational credit opportunities for on-the-job training. 

The third item was supporting full implementation of High School and Beyond Plans and encouraging efforts to align student career and technical coursework to their individualized plan and pathways available in the career and technical college system. The fourth was supporting full funding for the Core-Plus program — a state curriculum intended to better match academics with career-based learning — and aligning the program with dual credit opportunities. 

Allison Budvarson, Chief Operating Officer of Out of the Box Manufacturing and member of the council gave her thoughts on the list of items.

“First off, let me start big picture,” she said. “When I look at numbers one, two, three and four, I see pathways for our high schools, transitioning students out of high school, with a variety of pathways open to them, depending on what type of education pathway they are most interested in and likely to take. I also see opportunities for entry-level post-high-school people coming into the manufacturing community who may not have considered it directly out of high school. And I see a way to upskill our incumbent workforce.”

Budvarson elaborated on her position. 

“I really feel like we're casting a wide net, and providing training opportunities to many different audiences at several different levels of training. These four ideas support the education community's desire to provide training, the apprentice pathways, and then it also provides support for training that's done on the job by employers,” Budvarson said. “I think that there's still a lot of room in this language to get more specific to make sure that we are really kind of hitting the nail on these things that we care about as a group.”

Busch clarified that more specific language for the draft concepts would be developed later. 

Most of the discussion of the specific four list items focused on the first two concepts, expanding certificate programs and work-based learning. 

Director of Workforce Education with the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges Marie Bruin commented on item one. 

“So the intent is to focus on incumbent workers, to focus on immediate acquisition of skills in whichever way we can do that, and to also create a pipeline for new skills for individuals who are not yet on a pathway to manufacturing,” Bruin said. 

Busch explained other benefits of expanding access to short-term certificate programs. 

“I think that the other really attractive aspect of this particular recommendation is that we know that due to issues of poverty and other limitations and barriers, that short term, high access programs, low barrier programs are especially helpful to our to our (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) populations and women as they juggle family and work.”

Bruin then responded to Busch’s comment. 

“I agree that as an entry element that is critically important. But we also see data that shows that for our diverse populations and our remote populations in rural areas, that short term alone does not stabilize them in the labor market.”

Council member and Business Manager for Heat & Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 7 Todd Mitchell commented, saying he hopes the focus can be more specific and address apprenticeships versus other training programs. 

“That side of the business community that utilizes apprenticeship, they have been left out of a lot of that incumbent workforce piece,” Mitchell said. “So finding a way to ensure that dollars can be dedicated to a system that's already built, instead of just put back into the pipe, would be something that I would like to expand upon as we go forward.”

Busch also led a discussion on several items the council will look at in the future, focused primarily on supporting working families through factors such as childcare and making training programs more accessible outside of working hours. Busch said the council staff do not have sufficient time to develop the language and concepts to a point that they can be presented during the incoming legislative session. 

“My primary energy will be spent on these on the first four items,” she said, “and these (later items) will be as soon as session is over.”

Gabriel Davis may be reached at gdavis@columbiabasinherald.com. Download the Columbia Basin Herald app on iOS and Android.

    The Washington State Manufacturing Council was formed in 2022 in response to the passing of the Building Economic Strength Through Manufacturing (BEST) Act in 2021, according to a 2022 statement from the Washington State Department of Commerce.
  

    Senator Judy Warnick (R-Moses Lake) sits at her desk on the Senate floor in Olympia last legislative session. This year, Warnick, State Representative Tom Dent (R-Moses Lake) and State Representative Alex Ybarra (R-Quincy) will work through a variety of bills. The session begins January 8.