Betty Sutton Unveils a New Jobs Program
Sojourner’s Truth Staff

Betty Sutton, Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, arrived in Toledo last Friday to announce a new workforce development program that the [Rick] Cordray/Sutton ticket will be advancing over the course of the next three months as the general election approaches. She unveiled the “Better Skills, Better Jobs” program during a tour of Owens Community College’s Perrysburg campus.
 

Betty Sutton and Sherri Johnson,
chairwoman of the Owens Transportation Technology Department

“For years we’ve emphasized employers over employees,” said Sutton. “We are organizing efforts around one central theme - putting workers first.”

The first part of the program, said Sutton, is to “refocus the Workforce Transformation program.” That program, which Gov. John Kasich started, places its emphasis on employers, she noted. The Cordray/Sutton administration plans on focusing on the training of employees, in a variety of areas, and use the Workforce Transformation department to bring under one umbrella the 14 different workforce training and development programs that the State of Ohio currently operates. The new administration will turn the concept into “one coherent system, said Sutton.

Secondly, the Cordray/Sutton administration plans to make better use of the $50 million investment from the federal government to help create jobs. According to Sutton, Ohio will create about two million jobs over the next decade – jobs for which Ohioans are not adequately trained at the moment to fill.
 

The third part of the plan is to create more apprenticeship opportunities. “Vocational training is a viable path to a new career without the crushing debt that college brings,” said Sutton. “And workers can continue to upgrade skills throughout their careers.”

“This is a break with decades of how we’ve approached workforce development,” said Sutton. “The emphasis on workers provides workers with an opportunity to get started and to stay on the path.”
 

The “Better Skills, Better Jobs” program will also work with business, particularly small businesses by bringing on a “small business chief to help small businesses navigate the maze” of regulations and requirements they have to deal with now. “We will help employers continue to grow their businesses,” said Sutton.

While the “Better Skills, Better Jobs” program is a break from the now-established focus on bringing in and retaining businesses, Sutton said the Cordray/Sutton plan will have the same impact on businesses because “it will make us more attractive to employers.”

She is not daunted by the prospect of the program being dismantled in the future as administrations change from party to party because she is so convinced, she said, of how well the plan will succeed.

“Success breeds success.”

Copyright © 2018 by [The Sojourner's Truth]. All rights reserved.
Revised: 08/16/18 22:36:56 -0700.

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