Local control of federal workforce development funding will cease in the coming months as counties withdraw from an agreement that established a board of elected officials to oversee workforce development services in the region.

On Tuesday, with a unanimous vote from the Webster County Board of Supervisors, Webster County became the final county to pull out from the Chief Elected Official (CEO) Board of the North Central Iowa Local Workforce Development Area. The local workforce development area includes Calhoun, Hamilton, Humboldt, Pocahontas, Webster and Wright counties.

This move to dissolve the CEO board has been a long time coming, said Webster County Supervisor Bob Thode, who sits on the board to represent Webster County. For years, he said, the state has worked to chip away at the board’s authority, making it more and more difficult for the CEO board to exercise its local authority.

“One battle after another, after another — just when you think you’ve smoothed it out, they change the rules,” he said.

Thode said that the CEO board for the North Central area, as well as the boards for several other local workforce development areas across the state, has been butting heads with Iowa Workforce Development, asking for guidance that IWD won’t give to navigate federal rules and requirements.

“Everytime we have asked for some assistance from the state, we haven’t gotten it,” he said during the March 28 Board of Supervisors meeting. “The state’s doing everything they can to try to take over … basically, they’re getting their wish.”

Across the state, there are 15 workforce development regions, or areas. In 2019, the state released a plan to cut those regions from 15 to six. Counties in at least seven of these regions lodged a formal protest against this move to the United States Department of Labor.

“The counties won and it’s been miserable ever since,” Thode said. “They’re tired of fighting.”

The 18-county Western Iowa Local Workforce Development Area has also voted to dissolve its board, as has the eight-county Southwest Iowa LWDA, Thode said. The other five counties in the North Central LWDA have already voted to withdraw from the agreement that formed the CEO board, making Webster County the last county standing.

At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Thode explained that if Webster County alone decided to stay in the agreement and continue to manage the federal funding received, it would assume liability and have to provide services to the five counties that withdrew.

Thode said he isn’t happy with the way this has panned out and that he’s concerned that local residents won’t receive quality services with the state running the program.

“We know our communities better than the people in Des Moines do,” he said.

The CEO board will officially dissolve at the end of this fiscal year on June 30. Following that, IWD will be running the show.

“The citizens will still be taken care of,” Thode said. “It will just be coming out of Des Moines.”

“The local workforce board’s decision to disband does not impact IWD’s commitment to provide workforce services to the area and IWD will step in to provide those services in light of the local board’s decision to end their participation in this process,” IWD Director Beth Townsend said in an email on Thursday.

Thode also noted that he believes Gov. Kim Reynolds’ government realignment bill that was signed into law this legislative session is going to exacerbate problems for the remaining Local Workforce Development Area boards across the state.

“This realignment is just going to make it worse,” he said.

Thode added that the realignment bill will also strip local authority from other agencies, like the local board that oversees the Department of Correctional Services in the area, including the Fort Dodge Residential Correctional Facility.