Introduction

The Senate Presidents’ Forum convened in Lexington, KY, to discuss challenges and solutions to three substantial issues facing state legislatures:

• Exploring untapped sources to meet workforce needs

• Managing unprecedented flood and drought emergencies

• Considering what changing U.S.-China relations portend for the states.

​The Forum Welcomes New Senate Participants​Jason Ellsworth
Senate President Pro Tempore (MT)​James Manning, Jr.
Senate President Pro Tempore (OR)​Beth Mizell
Senate President Pro Tempore (LA)

Meeting Workforce Needs

Crisis To Career: The Formerly Incarcerated – An Untapped Workforce

Training and transitional employment are the keys to building a productive foundation for those returning home from prison; a population that can also help solve the nation’s labor shortage, according to Sam Schaeffer, the Executive Director and CEO for the Center for Employment Opportunities, and Simone Price, Director of Organizing. The speakers provided a roadmap for employment of the formerly incarcerated, citing the value of this untapped source of labor to meet shortages. They offered an evidence-based approach demonstrating the impact of rethinking barriers to workforce re-entry for these potential workers. <Full Report>

Meeting Workforce Needs

Crisis To Career: Addiction Recovery and Workforce Development

In this second session devoted to developing new sources to meet workforce needs, Jennifer Hancock, President & CEO for Volunteers of America, and Christina Compton, Admissions Manager, described actionable approaches to help people break free of addiction and become reliable contributors to the workforce.

A third session led by Tim Robinson, CEO & Founder of Addiction Recovery Care (ARC), reported findings linking the opioid addiction crisis to the decline in workforce participation. He described the ARC program, which provides access to evidence-based treatment and recovery services. He also presented data demonstrating how effectively the program has helped people recovering from addiction to secure and maintain employment and reenter the workforce. <Full Report>

Water Management: Flood & Drought

More frequently occurring environmental disasters of an unprecedented scale are straining the states’ emergency management capabilities. Flooding is now the costliest and most common natural hazard in the United States. Simultaneously, half of the lower 48 are currently in drought, exacerbating the risk of flooding when severe storms occur.

A panel of experts, including Col. Jeremy Slinker, Director, Kentucky Division of Emergency Management, Colin Wellenkamp, Executive Director, Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative, and Alice Hill, David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment, from the Council on Foreign Relations, provided intergovernmental perspectives on prevention, recovery, and resilience as the nation faces a future of daunting extremes. <Full Report>

Trade-Offs And Tensions In U.S.-China Relations

In this installment of the Forum’s international programming, US-China relations were discussed by Gerard DiPippo, who is a Senior Fellow in the Economics Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS). There is an ongoing challenge to reconcile the states’ business and economic interests with national security concerns given current forecasts of Beijing’s strategic intentions. <Full Report>