Meeting Minutes Albuquerque, New Mexico March 26-28, 2013

Meeting Minutes Albuquerque, New Mexico March 26-28, 2013 Attendees: Dan Brown, IA Andy Condon, CT Steve Duthie, MT Amy Gehring, MN Gary Gipson, OR Steve Hine (Chair), MN Shannon Kinder, SC Christopher Knight, FL John Pearce, OR Dana Placzek, CT Steve Rosenow, IA. Alan Sandoval, NC James Siakhasone, IA Roger Therrien, CT John Torres, NV Sam Wright, ETA. Steve Hine opened the meeting by welcoming attendees to Albuquerque, and introducing new members from NC and SC. He then noted that a few people aren t here, and asked for discussion of this. Why don t all states that are ARC members attend or participation? What are the expectations? What do states need to do to become members of ARC. Sam Wright responds it s strictly voluntary. Sam guesses when some previous participant from a state left their department, no one was there to take their place. Steve questions if he should reach out to members or request new states for membership. Steve Hine will reach out to the current members not in attendance. He asks that if we know of members from other states, we should reach out to them. Roger suggests creating a network for data presentation, and offers names that will help in this (Jeremy Deyo in VA and Marlin Fletcher in CA). Steve Hine wants more people and more diverse skill set. What are our needs? What kinds of talent and skills do we need to recruit for this? With budget and travel restrictions, is hosting training the best way to serve members? Steve Duthie notes it s hard for anyone to make long term plans. Chris Knight notes Bob Cottrell used to send out a communiqué every few years to get their interest level. Steve Hine notes money is there in ARC to pay for states to attend. Updates since last meeting in June in Nashville. Transition from NC to MN has been difficult. One challenge was the timeliness of the execution of the crosswalk center contract. Steve Rosenow issued retirement papers four times before money was transferred over, which was delayed by NC thru no-cost extension. Now have

contract in place until November. Rosenow commended NC for their efforts to extend contract as well. MN has also established a contract with Roger Therrien so he can see us thru RFP process. Roger is securely contracted for that now as well. Entered into a contract with NC to bridge the funding of the Estimates Delivery System (EDS) from Jan 1 to June 30. That contract was put into place last Friday until June 30 to pay for Tom Price s time and to organize an EDS training planned for June in Nashville. Will develop a plan to create an environment of EDS so one person no longer has all information about EDS. Fourth contract in place is with IA to make final delivery of the employer database. First deliverable of 2013 is now online. PY12 money was issued to MN but NC still on record as the fiscal agent of the grant, so they have the paperwork. Now need to retract money and re-issue it back to MN. Steve Hine and Sam Wright will be working this out soon. Sam discussed budgets, and stated he doesn t know how sequestration cuts will affect WIG, ARC, PMP. Decisions will be made by May/June. Hine points out most funds are obligated to crosswalk center or employer database. For the record, Sam commends Steve on doing an excellent job keeping this together, despite the ear full he got. Promises it will get better. Steve appreciates the problems that come from funding transfers. Expectations for various work groups was discussed. Policy group will primarily work on the Employer Database RFP. Structure committee usual little issues that pop up. May issue another dot release. Dealing with Bill Stambaugh s departure. Education communication group. Steve Duthie only one here to speak on it. Due to funding, no trainings planned. Hine asks if group needs to be on hiatus? Duthie agrees it does, not enough representation. Knight says getting out word of ARC and updating website is part of education group s duties, and new people need to have that information. Description of what each work group does is on ARC website. Hine proposes when we reconvene as a group tomorrow, we discuss what we should do with education group. Steve Duthie proposes bringing information group into having some education group duties. Information presentation key to get new members, show the benefit of ARC. EDS discussion: Sam Wright says ARC support of EDS will help in funding, to show what people get out of ARC, what the benefit of EDS is. Andy Condon said he will do this. OES policy council has role to play in explaining benefit of EDS. Chris, James and Alan can be called on to help explain EDS to Sam and others. Without it, we only have statewide and MSA occupational employment estimates. It allows states to have customizable geographies within the states. Produces estimates customers are demanding, ie local data. It also allows you to review estimates in a helpful way. Says if population level is adequate to produce statistically reliable estimates. This is part of long-term viability system, opportunity to rebrand it. Policy council: Information from the WIC. IQ system to replace Win202 or Expo system. Every state would be in uniform production methods for QCEW. Also provides a centralized system states could migrate to. Utah was developer state, but they suffered from high turnover. Release data pushed back to 2015. Initial assessment team said it could be in Oracle and SQL

server environment, but this was not the case. Need to make a choice, BLS chose Oracle while states wanted SQL. Development team realized target dates were way too optimistic. 2015 may not hold. BLS will absorb cost of doing this, how to keep Sungard Expo states on Expo. Now pilot is saying 2016, but not a hard date. Waiting for developers in Utah to confirm. Chris pointed out that Win202 can t run on Windows 2008 system, CIO of FL won t keep on 2003 server, as Microsoft doesn t support server 2003 anymore. ME is virtualizing their system. CT on win202, but has their own servers. No funding to upgrade win202, just put a Band-Aid on existing problems. Until IQ comes along, states with win202 need to support current system. BLS needs to have a plan to deal with delayed deployment. CW says this is a MAJOR issue, calls for help falling on deaf ears. Evalina from IL is on policy council, is person Steve Hine says will take up issue. Or Rena Kottkamp from MA as PC state co-chair. Roger makes it clear it is a software and hardware issue. FL problem is immediate. CT can support system, but if hardware fails, without MS support, will need new hardware. Big risk to run this way. Hine and Condon will reach out to their policy council reps. Also WIC phone call on Wednesday. o Andy reported on demo of a new framework for OES to become modeled time series. Years away, but looks interesting. No leader of OES, looking to fill position at BLS. March 27, 2013. Steve Hine asked for volunteers with knowledge of EDS to participate in policy group. Andy Condon and Alan Sandoval volunteered. National Crosswalk Service Center update from Steve Rosenow. Content updates becoming routine as time goes on. Even does updates from the road. Census EEO file is coming out. Huge files with a lot of information to discuss if needed by states. ARC wiki was hacked while Steve was on vacation. It was shut down and remains shut down. They use old software prone to hacking. But static NCSC site was revived. He would like to bring back the wiki, but it hasn t gotten a lot of use despite there being good content. We need to decide if it s necessary. Published 1-2 annual reports. Documents all they do over the year. Releases dependent on data available from BLS, ACS etc. Make files available thru FTP or download. 70-100,000 downloads per year available freely to anyone. WID files are 70% of downloads, so people do find value in the NCSC. Place for states to get their information. But doesn t have ability to identify who is downloading the data. He does have list of people/organizations that have contacted the NCSC by email. Many questions are asking for too specific information for them. ONET files are second largest group of downloads, about 20%. Detailed source of technology used in information. Licensing information goes to Career One-Stop only. States must update every two years according to WIG TEGL. States don t always comply, and no one asks how old the information is. He hasn t been actively seeking out states to provide information. Hine

wants to get ahead of ETA on this. If there is a lack of participation, it may come back to hurt ARC. State reports are supposed to include if they have done this. Credentialing is important part of federal tracking. Steve Rosenow will send overview of activity and compliance to Andy Condon and Steve Hine. o Shannon Kinder wants to know if there is help for new people to send license data to the NCSC. Steve R. will send more information to the group on the format of the file to send. States house this information differently, though. Career One-Stop (COS) receives three updates to the database. Bill McMahon is who he s dealt with at COS in the past. He sends it to them; it s not available on ftp. If it were freely available there is fear data will be out of sync from what COS displays and what states display. WIG TEGL training and employment guidance letter should be out within next few months. Sam says TEGL this year will be a lot clearer since he got input from the regions, they were able to tell the history. Anything confusing in TEGL, send email and he will work on clarification. The NCSC has done 2-3 ARC newsletters. Steve R. would like other people to write this for diversity of information. Will ask states to contribute. Keeps list of state DBAs up to date. Also has list of state delegates to ARC and what committees they are on. If there are updates, send information to him. Also posts meeting minutes from consortium meetings. EEO file is larger than ACS 5-year estimates. So much info, hard to know what to focus on. Steve would like guidance from human rights organization on what should be available. ARC/NCSC can t provide all the information to everyone. Only a few states use the demographics table data. Wants to know what s useful to states before proceeding. Steve is getting used to business as usual after contract problems over the past year. He is happy to be participating in ARC again. Question of who will replace Steve once he retired. He proposes looking to hire someone to learn his job. If someone is in place, IA may be more willing to continue to house the NCSC. BLS/CES data: Hine talked to Amy Butler at BLS, who wanted to reformat data delivery. Xwalk is now at point where they don t need file BLS provides. ACESWeb is not providing seasonally adjusted CES data in 2.5 format. James knows who manages ACES team, can get a hold of him. Steve H. will investigate this. Andy Condon on the WIC: Met last week of February, meetings are one day of state meetings, two days of full WIC. Region 2 needs an OES policy council member. May need a member from outside the area. Rural loan program. Requests from USDA if project will harm industry in local area. Discussion on sharing and standardizing methodology to deal with these requests. PIE program. Prison Industry Enterprises, prison labor at subsidized rates. Over half LMI directors left in past year. Pace of turnover has been higher. Looking at mentoring program to help new directors.

Presentation from Pam Gerrasimides from NASWA on national labor exchange and what is possible to do with that data. It s not complete data, but it is unduplicated. Available to all of us if we want it. Need password, Becky Rust is working on getting the password information. Will let us know when ready. Met new BLS commissioner, Erica Groshen. Andy was impressed, has history of using local data programs, and understands its importance. She was VP at NY Fed Reserve. Her first job duties were to figure out what programs to cut. Eliminating entire programs with low priority instead of gutting funding to all programs. Cut program to compare international employment statistics. Also, MLS will be eliminating at the end of June this year. Last round of OES Green jobs survey was eliminated. Then 2.5% decrease across other BLS programs. Had discussion with CES program. Asking for analysis from BLS between preliminary release data and final release data. Revisions have been questionable. They haven t provided this analysis yet. What has happened as result of centralization? Want more protection on changing state press release dates or times. Also language to prevent politically motivated change in the release time. Continuing to discuss conditions in which states governors have access to information before it s released. Strict list of who can see the information before the release. Sue in Pennsylvania looking at impact of health care employment as a result of Obamacare. What industries will be impacted with increased demand? Every 5 years, states need a workforce information plan sent to ETA. Mixed results from states, plans not always followed through. Wants to improve the process. Discussions on efforts to stabilize critical programs with ETA. Including EDS and projections along with ARC, find a model to avoid disruptions when state leadership changes. Presentation from Matthew Day on approach to OES estimation procedures designed to move OES into legitimate time series. Andy was impressed. A number of working teams in WIC. One team working on high tech industry taxonomy to universalize across the states. Examine costs of improving QCEW to provide hours worked and possibly occupation data. UI driven by state collection procedures. Need to provide a value to the states, show what can be produced by the states if they have this information available. Roger commented the LMI director from LA is good source for this information, especially on mobile apps. Update on IQ system and its delayed release date. Some states bought equipment for beta testing. But testing won t start for years. They ve gotten permission to use servers for other uses. We will have a new benchmark-related deliverable for CES, recognizes reality that CES can t benchmark without state input. Chris Knight asks what happened to report on the technology we use in each state. CA compiled a spreadsheet scoring LMI websites in terms of what they wanted to do with their own site. This was for their own internal site. o Roger has completed report for WIC on LMI shops use of technology. A lot of good things, at least 10 states will completely redesign their LMI website in next year. Despite hesitance to use of social media, there has been increased use. Sharing tools to put on

o o site allows users to like something and share it without using Facebook. Minority of states have share tools, but growing. Many states use Twitter for communications, but could be more. Report is intended as a reference tool to contact other states for help in implementing tools on their site. ARC should have available resources on website for these tools. ARC should develop a plan to create priorities for this. States want to improve their sites, often their IT departments are an impediment. Roger found states response to questionnaire was often inaccurate and didn t reflect what was actually on their site. Wide difference of understanding of capabilities. Lack of knowledge of how things got done in their department. Out of loop with people who actually do the programming. An education process may be valuable to let them know what s out there. March 28, 2013 Policy group spent all their time writing the employer database RFP almost complete, although Roger and Andy will have more work when they return to CT to incorporate additions/changes reflecting CT state laws. Thanks to Roger and Andy for taking this on. Structure committee wrap up: With Bill gone, Dana Placzak takes over control of the structure document. Dana will continue as chair of the group. NAICS 2012 will get a new code type. Naiccode table will have an added codetype column added to track the NAICS versions as they are released. This was solution instead of creating multiple tables to hold NAICS versions. This will be non-standard change until 2.6 release. Shut down of MLS program simply means we stop populating the data. No change to the structure of the WID. EEO tables: o Race ethnicity categories don t fit current WID race ethnicity categories. Steve Duthie and Dana will work on this issue. Steve Hine notes there will be a change to the MSA definitions soon. CES: WA, WI, CT make their own CES estimates. John Pearce proposed having a source column added to CES table to track if the data came from BLS or state s own estimates. John P. is also working on publishing the WID in XML and JSON format. He will give anyone source code to create our own. Web tools can then run from a centralized location rather than running off the database each time. o To share source code, John P. and Steve R. will work on resurrecting the sand box to post applications and documentation. o Chris K. notes FL is also using XML and customers really like the functionality of creating their own queries for the data. o XML is simplest way to provide open access. Can control access as much as you want. o XML also allows states to share data even if they are on different versions of the WID.

o MT also working on their own XML product. Code exists in the cloud, so one state can access and use another state s data without having to download it into a database. Ability to easily compare to another state s data. o Potential web tools training session included in next meeting. Other states have expressed interest in web tools upgrade. Need hands on time with developers to see the functionality. Last technology conference in Atlanta was very successful. DBAs and vendors showed new ideas to display the data. o Roger has concerns that state will no longer be the source for state data. Need capacity within the states first, not a vendor. Approach it from within the state, not contract out. Others note speed in implementing this is a greater priority. Need to have the business/lmi directors on board, can t originate out of the tech people. o Group to lead the effort Chris K, John P., Steve D. info presentation group. Steve H. wants them to put together a demonstration comparing state LAUS data so business decision makers can see and understand how this will work. Then they need knowledge to talk to their IT departments and implement this. o ETA has link to us that allows states to imbed an icon into their webpage and bring local customers to other sites such as My Skills, My Future. Career One Stop also has links to various application tools. o Bill McMahon may be interested in participating in this group as well Steve H. will ask. There are 25 states so far in WDQI, with more joining (majority) linking employment and education data. Future project for structure committee to include this information in WID. Some states will have their developmental stage in November, we should look at the products they produce and see if there is a model to adapt so data and presentation are consistent across states. Teleconferences. Consensus to have one every other month. Bring in member states that don t come to consortium meetings, or DBAs from non-members states to get more feedback to the structure. Dana coordinates the calls. Progress on policy committee = completed review of old RFP, made changes needed for new issuance. Propose scheduling next meeting in September so final decision on contract award can be made then. Discussion on location of next meeting: Portland OR offered. John P. and Gary G. will forward site/hotel recommendations to Steve H. Charleston and Savannah also suggested as fall-back options. Structure notes: Deprecation list. Tag tables we support for a while, but they will be dropped soon. o Method of communication for this list, and other DBA contact should be email. Social media still not a useful tool due to state access. Sandbox apps shared throughout the states. Why there is still not a sandbox created? Where will it be housed? Xwalk susceptible to hacking, so John P. suggests it exist in the cloud. He already has tools housed on google. Larger committee approves its development. Training: more is needed, especially for new DBA hires. Difficulty with travel for some, so we can create on online course with basic information presentation. Steve H. notes that when people

see a need and training shows a benefit, then people will come. Steve D. notes that online courses will have the flexibility to cover many topics that fit various needs. Is there the ability to bring someone on board in Marilyn Skalberg s past position? John P. will reach out to Marilyn to see if she is still interested in coming back. Steve H. says it is possible to bring someone in, if she s interested he will pursue contract negotiations. ARC is still a few steps away from being secure, but is on track. Word on next year s funding along with this meeting s minutes. FY2012 money is fixed and not subject to sequestration. Money starting this July is subject to cuts. WIG grants are uncut as of last week. We have two years to spend money we already have but haven t been able to spend due to NC/MN transition issues. Amy Gehring put forward a devoted web application training session is important. We need a web application in place first. John P. is taking the lead, Amy G. will help in setting up training. John P. putting together program and sandbox. Roger suggests sending an email to all the DBAs asking what training they would like and if they are able to travel. Steve H. volunteered Amy G. to do this.