Jeb Bush
Governor

Susan Pareigis
Director	

MEMORANDUM

DATE: 	 May 27, 2005

TO:		Regional Workforce Board Executive Directors*

FROM:	 Lois Scott, Program Manager, One Stop and Program Support 

SUBJECT:	Development of a National Emergency Grant Application to Support Activities Related to the 2005 Defense Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC 2005) Recommendations

On May 13, 2005, Defense Secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, submitted the Department of Defense’s recommendations to the BRAC Commission which included a list of military installations to be closed or realigned (see Attachment I).  The BRAC Commission will submit its report on the recommendations to the President by September 8, 2005.  The President has until September 23, 2005 to accept or reject the recommendations.  Based on the BRAC recommendations,civilian workers at the following military installations may need our assistance to return to gainful employment:

•	Pensacola Naval Air Station  
•	Hurlburt Field
•	Naval Support Activity Panama city
•	Tyndall Air Force Base
•	Patrick Air Force Base
•	Defense and Accounting Services, Orlando

According to the Training and Employment Guidance Letter Number 16-03, Change 2, National Emergency Grant (NEG) funds are available to ensure that the impacted workers have early access to quality services that have been coordinated with partners in the BRAC actions (see Attachment II).  The United States Department of Labor (USDOL) has reserved Program Year 2004 NEG funds to plan for and assist workers and communities likely to be impacted as a result of the 2005 round of BRAC.  In order to address the impact of BRAC 2005 closures and realignments, NEG funds will be made available in two phases.  Phase I planning grants will be made available at this time to plan a comprehensive response to a BRAC 2005 closure or realignment as the basis to provide employment and training assistance to affected workers under Phase II. 

Regional Workforce Board Executive Directors
May 27, 2005
Page Two

The Agency for Workforce Innovation (AWI) will be seeking Phase I NEG funds to assist  state agencies and Regional Workforce Boards in conducting comprehensive and integrated locally-based planning.  It is our intent to involve other key decision makers and stakeholders, in order to facilitate a quality, timely and effective system-wide response to meet the needs of workers, communities and businesses directly or indirectly affected by the BRAC 2005 actions.

Although the USDOL does not expect that the Phase I funding level will exceed $1 million for the planning phase for BRAC 2005,  the amount of each individual award for planning activities will depend on the number and size of facilities likely to be impacted, the expected complexity of the transition, the comprehensive nature of the activities to be undertaken, the number of military or defense-related workers expected to be impacted, the potential impact on the local community, including but not limited to, secondarily-impacted businesses and enterprises and their workers, and the capacity of the workforce investment system (including educational institutions) to deal with the expected dislocations over the next two years.    
The NEG BRAC application must be submitted to the USDOL by June 10, 2005.  We are requesting your assistance in determining if NEG BRAC funding is needed for your area.  If so, please submit a brief narrative which outlines the types of planning activities that will be undertaken in your regions. At a minimum, your narrative should address the following areas: (see Attachment II (Page 10)):

•	The nature of the types of collaboration and coordination planned and the identities by agency/organization of the key stakeholders to be involved, e.g., Mayor, County Commissioner, Planning Board Director, etc;
•	Types of activities to be undertaken to evaluate and plan the enhancement of the local capacity of area education and other entities necessary to provide assistance to impacted workers;
•	How employer surveys of expected impacted workers will be conducted to help determine worker impact;
•	Preliminary assessments of the labor force impacts of expected BRAC 2005-related layoffs (e.g., secondarily affected businesses not covered under BRAC 2005 or related per se to defense contractors);
•	Level of funding that the state or local government has applied for or received from Department of Defense and/or Commerce, and how NEG funds will supplement the activities being planned as a result of those funds;
•	Other collaborative initiatives being undertaken using prior experiences with BRAC or evaluation of prior BRAC lessons; and
•	Initiatives planned to connect with economic development strategies.

Regional Workforce Board Executive Directors
May 27, 2005
Page Three

Additionally, AWI is requesting that you provide the amount of funding you will need to support Phase I activities.

Your narrative must be emailed to Jackie Phillips at jackie.phillips@awi.state.us or Smitha Moore at smitha.moore@awi.state.fl.us as soon as possible, but no later than Monday, June 6, 2005 since the application must be in Washington by June 10, 2005.
 
If you have any questions regarding the development of the NEG application, please call Alecia Shally at (850) 247-7476 or Jackie Phillips at (850) 921-3311.  Your assistance in this matter is greatly appreciated.

SS/osm

Enclosures

*Edward J. LeBrun, Jr.
 Mary Lou Reed
 Kimberly L. Bodine
Lisa Rice
Gary Earl

cc:	Curtis Austin
	Mike Switzer
	Susan Simpler
	Mitch Collier