Charting a Course: Responding to the Industry-Related
Adult Basic Education Needs of the Texas Workforce
Handbook One: Planning and Implementation Tips
for Program Planners and Administrators

Module One: Determining Program Capacity, Services, and Solutions

Identifying Funds to Expand Adult Education Services

Scenario: You just received a call from a local employer interested in having ESL instruction offered at the worksite. You want to oblige, but you have stretched your adult education budget about as far as it will go. The employer made no mention of training dollars available to pay for a needs assessment, instruction, or instructional materials. You suspect he is calling in response to a recent newspaper article featuring local adult education program services. You have never before discussed fees for services, and you’re not sure where to begin. You have an appointment with the employer next week to discuss the perceived needs and the services/solutions you might provide. How can you prepare for a preliminary discussion of costs?

With the growing demand for adult education services in workforce-related settings, program coordinators are increasingly concerned about stretching adult education dollars further than ever before. It is important to remember that costs for services provided at a worksite or for a particular group of emerging, incumbent, or displaced workers can be shared. Other sources of funding must be identified to help defray costs and provide learners with access to a continuum of education and training options.

Sharing Costs. While there is no charge to the learner for adult education services, the services are not “free” in the strictest sense of the word. There are administrative costs, personnel salaries, the costs of instructional materials, facility and utility costs, computer hardware and software, and consumable assessment materials. Furthermore, when it comes to preparing to deliver workforce-related instruction, few programs are able to compensate instructional staff for the additional time spent participating in language task analysis activities, meetings, and report writing, and instructional preparation. With current state funding levels so limited, cost sharing is essential.

Talking to Your Fiscal Agent. Before discussing shared costs with those requesting services, you will need to work with your host institution to determine how to collect funds from other sources and how to track expenditures. Oftentimes, a separate account must be established. Most importantly, you must ensure that these funds go directly back into the Adult Education program. A budget detailing program income is required and must be submitted to TEA for federal reporting.

Investing in Human Capital. In the past, only a fraction of corporate training dollars was spent on employees below the middle management level. But changes in the labor pool also require changes in how companies spend their training dollars. Solvent, profit-minded employers can not afford high turnover among entry-level employees on the manufacturing floor, in medical facilities, or in sales and service. Employers understand, for instance, that what happens in the “back of the house” in service industries impacts the quality of products and services to the customer, client, patient, buyer, guest, and distributor.

Getting Comfortable Talking About Sharing Costs/Fees for Services. This is a topic few adult educators are comfortable discussing, but program solvency requires expense sharing. There are often added expenses in providing educational services at an employer’s site or to a particular group identified by the local workforce development network. The pages that follow provide information about other funding sources, a budgetary worksheet to help you identify and discuss costs that may need to be shared, and work-related scenarios to familiarize you with some of the details of workplace services.