5/10/2010 

                                                                                                               

Senator Lassa’s Wisconsin C.O.R.E. Jobs Act & Career Conversations Bill Signed into Law

C.O.R.E. expands current programs and adds new initiatives to spur job growth and retention;
Career Conversations links students to potential career opportunities

Green Bay – The most comprehensive jobs package to emerge from the 2009-2010 legislative session was signed into law today.  Governor Doyle signed the Wisconsin C.O.R.E. Jobs Act, authored by Sen. Julie Lassa (D-Stevens Point), at a ceremony at Enzymatic Therapy in Green Bay.

 “A lot of thought and effort went into crafting this comprehensive job creation legislation,” said Lassa.  “With provisions to retain and grow existing businesses, assistance for entrepreneurs to create new small businesses and additional resources for worker training, this bill will help our economy grow and provide good paying jobs for Wisconsin’s hard working men and women,” Lassa said.

“C.O.R.E will make it easier to turn new sciences and technologies discovered at our universities and research institutions into products and services that create new industries or grow existing ones,” Lassa said. “These programs will, for example, help the groundbreaking research into nanotechnology, polymers and alternative energy production being done at UW-Stevens Point translate into new jobs in emerging industries statewide.”

“C.O.R.E. also adds resources to the Wisconsin Development Fund, the state's rapid response tool to help keep businesses open and attract new ones to our communities. Companies like ERCO Worldwide in Port Edwards and Corenso International in Wisconsin Rapids have benefited directly from Development Fund grants, and communities like the City of Marshfield and the Village of Biron have used grants to improve their economic infrastructure,” she said.

“This bill will also keep factories open by providing incentives to convert them to green energy manufacturing and production, like the closed or underused paper facilities in Central Wisconsin that could possibly be utilized to produce  biofuels in the future,” Lassa said.

C.O.R.E. stands for Connecting Opportunity, Research and Entrepreneurism.  The bill was structured around three goals:  Creating New Jobs and Businesses, Retaining and Building Existing Wisconsin Businesses, and Educating and Training our Workforce.  Provisions in the bill include:

Creating New Jobs and Businesses

  • Expanding the Accelerate Wisconsin program by adding $3 million more in tax credits for 2010 to spur investment in Wisconsin companies with the credits increasing to $20 million a year thereafter.  The current amount of tax credits available each year is $5.5 million.
  • Grants to help partner small and mid size businesses with research institutions, including the University of Wisconsin comprehensive campuses, to commercialize new technologies faster.
  • A micro-loan program to help entrepreneurs start their own small businesses.
  • Support for a UW system-wide business plan competition similar to the one at UW-Madison.
  • Funding a regulatory assistance center to provide one-stop help with the state’s permitting and approval process.

Retaining and Building Existing Businesses

  • An additional $1 million for the Wisconsin Development Fund, used to attract and retain businesses.
  • Incentives help companies retool for green energy production or manufacturing.
  • Grants to encourage companies to do Farmshoring – a development strategy that brings good jobs to rural areas of Wisconsin instead of sending these jobs overseas.
  • The creation of the Wisconsin Business Intelligence System (WISBIS) to provide economic modeling data to regional economic development entities.

Educating and Training Our Workforce

  • Adding more resources to the popular Advanced Manufacturing Skills Training program grant created in the economic recovery bill from earlier this year. “These grants have already been used by more than 100 companies to train over 4,100 workers in new skills to expand businesses, including Ocean Spray in Wood County and specialty paper manufacturer MaraTech International in Marathon County,” Lassa said.
  • Creation of an employee education investment tax credit.  This credit will leverage new resources for skills training and career education by providing $2 million in incentives for businesses who pay university or technical college tuition for low-income employees.
  •  Increasing the capacity of the CAP Services Skills Enhancement Program, assisting low-wage earning workers to obtain additional training or education. Workers completing this program have seen an average annual income increase of $10,000.

Visit  www.legis.wisconsin.gov/senate/sdc/CORE/ for more information about the C.O.R.E. Jobs Act.

The governor also today signed Senate Bill 121, authored by Senator Lassa, which establishes a Career Conversations program.  Career Conversations will provide students in grades 7 through 12 with the opportunity to interact via webcams with individuals working in high wage/high demand jobs in Wisconsin.  This program will help students learn about in-demand careers as well as what education or skills training potential employees need to perform these jobs. 

“Career Conversations is a simple way to better inform students, teachers, and parents about jobs and careers that have a promising future in our state by allowing them to interact with people who are already employed in that sector,” Lassa said. “It will also help Wisconsin businesses interact with the state’s future workforce.”