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The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently visited Iowa in response to a bipartisan request from the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to look at the degree to which community colleges are integrated into the one-stop system under the Workforce Investment Act nationwide.  As part of their trip, the GAO commended representatives of North Iowa Area Community College and the Iowa Workforce Center regarding their partnership efforts through the Workforce Development Partnership. 

“We were very pleased that our one-stop was selected for this visit by the State as a ‘Best Practices for Iowa.’  As we begin our eleventh year of this partnership, we continue to benefit from the joint projects, collaborative leadership and resource leveraging,” Nancy Bair, director of the Workforce Development Center, said.  “The visit gave us a great chance to reflect on our accomplishments as partners.”

As an effort to learn what states are doing to combine community college and workforce efforts into one-stop services, the GAO objectives were to examine the extent to which the nation’s network of community colleges are linked to the one-stop system, look at conditions or practices that enhance the potential for effective linkages and evaluate the U.S. Department of Labor’s efforts to encourage these linkages.

“This recognition from the GAO confirms the value of our partnership strategies. We leverage resources and add value to serve a wider and more diverse clientele,” Dr. Michael Morrison, NIACC president, said.

Findings from the GAO visit provided an impressive and complimentary view of NIACC’s partnership with the Workforce Development Center and their joint efforts to create a one-stop service to North Iowans.  Ideas from the partnership may appear in national recommendations on other partnerships around the nation.

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