Texas Workforce Council to Adopt Next Year’s Plan Sept. 11 Facing Abolition in 2027

The Texas Workforce Investment Council will vote Sept. 11 on its plan for the coming year, a year that ends about the time the council is scheduled to go out of existence. State law abolishes it Sept. 1, 2027, unless the Legislature votes to keep it alive.

The council runs nothing. Nineteen members attached to the governor’s office — five from business, five from organized labor, three from education, one from a community group and five agency heads — write the strategic plan for the eight state agencies, 28 regional boards and community colleges that Texas calls its workforce system, and double as the state board federal law requires. Sunset Commission staff recommended in June keeping the council for another 12 years but abolishing the Texas Skill Standards program it administers, which recognized 12 college programs last year. Chairman Rick Rhodes testified before the commission in August. The recommendations go to lawmakers in 2027.

Members also get an update on the biggest change to federal student aid for short training in decades. A 2025 federal law and the rules written under it extended Pell grants, starting July 1, to programs as short as 150 clock hours and eight weeks — but only where a state’s governor certifies that the training leads to real work. Texas set that bar at occupations paying above $47,499 a year and adding at least 400 jobs over a decade, which works out to 25 occupations and 362 programs of study. The Higher Education Coordinating Board closed the first application window Sept. 1. The governor’s office and the U.S. Education Department review next, and the following window opens Nov. 2.

Two other items are worth watching. Staff report that the Texas Education Agency missed the June 1 deadline to file its five-year strategic plan, so the council reviewed five of six workforce agencies for alignment instead of all six; it also found that the Veterans Commission’s plan did not address the system’s stated priorities. And economist Ray Perryman presents a county-by-county study comparing the state’s 28 workforce areas against three other regional maps state agencies use — an update of a 2007 report, and an implicit question about whether the boundaries still fit the economy.

None of that comes to a vote. The single action item is the work plan itself, which lists 16 critical functions and more than 50 duties the council owes the state and federal government. Members meet again Dec. 4 to act on the annual evaluation of a system that served almost 4.5 million Texans last year.

Meeting at a glance

Council members

• Rick Rhodes — chairman; Austin; rural funding coordinator, former agriculture department official.
• Michelle Harper — vice chair; San Marcos; community-based organization member.
• Paloma Ahmadi — Shavano Park; business and industry.
• Thomas Halbouty — Southlake; business and industry.
• Wayne Oswald — Houston; business and industry.
• Bobby Smith — Austin; business and industry.
• Joe Arnold — Muldoon; education.
• Richard Rhodes — Austin; education; Austin Community College chancellor.
• Johnny Vahalik — Victoria; education.
• Lindsey Bush — Waco; labor.
• Aida Coronado — Brownsville; labor.
• Jesse Gatewood — Corpus Christi; labor.
• John Martin — San Antonio; labor.
• Paul Puente — Houston; labor.
• Ex officio: Adriana Cruz, Mike Morath, Stephanie Muth, Steve Pier, Wynn Rosser.

Roster taken from the September 11 briefing book, not from the council’s own members page, which is out of date and still lists three former members and two agency heads who have since left. Chairman Rick Rhodes, a business member named chairman April 12, 2023, is a different person from council member Richard Rhodes, the Austin Community College chancellor who sits in an education seat. Executive director: Kaki Leyens, (512) 936-8100.