The following definitions govern the construction of this part:

(a) “Board of governors” means the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges.

(b) “Business Resource Assistance and Innovation Network” means the network of projects and programs that comprise the California Community Colleges Economic and Workforce Development Program.

(c) “California Community Colleges Economic and Workforce Development Program” and “economic and workforce development program” mean the program.

(d) “Career pathways,” and “career ladders,” or “career lattices” mean an identified series of positions, work experiences, or educational benchmarks or credentials that offer occupational and financial advancement within a specified career field or related fields over time.

(e) (1) “Center” means a comprehensive program of services offered by one or more community colleges to an economic region of the state in accordance with criteria established by the chancellor’s office for designation as an economic and workforce development program center. Center services shall be designed to respond to the statewide strategic priorities pursuant to the mission of the community colleges’ economic and workforce development program, and to be consistent with programmatic priorities, competitive and emerging industry sectors and industry clusters, identified economic development, career technical education, business development, and continuous workforce training needs of a region. Centers shall provide a foundation for a long-term, sustained relationship with businesses, labor, colleges, and other workforce education and training delivery systems, such as local workforce investment boards, in the region.

(2) A center shall support, develop, and deliver direct services to students, businesses, colleges, labor organizations, employees, and employers. For purposes of this subdivision, direct services include, but are not necessarily limited to, data analysis both of labor market information and college performance; intraregion and multiregion sector coordination and logistics; inventory of community college and other assets relevant to meeting a labor market need; curriculum development, curriculum model development, or job task analysis development; articulation of curriculum in a career pathway or career lattice or in a system of stackable credentials; faculty training; calibration to a career readiness or other assessment; assessment administration; career guidance module development or counseling; convenings, such as seminars, workshops, conferences, and training; facilitating collaboration between faculty working in related disciplines and sectors; upgrading, leveraging, and developing technology; and other educational services. The establishment and maintenance of the centers is under the sole authority of the chancellor’s office in order to preserve the flexibility of the system to adapt to labor market needs and to integrate resources.

(f) “Chancellor” means the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges.

(g) “Economic security” means, with respect to a worker, earning a wage sufficient to adequately support a family and to, over time, save money for emergency expenses and adequate retirement income, the sufficiency of which is determined considering a variety of factors including household size, the cost of living in the worker’s community, and other factors that may vary by region.

(h) “High-priority occupation” means an occupation that has a significant presence in a targeted industry sector or industry cluster, is in demand by employers, and pays or leads to payment of high wages.

(i) “Industry cluster” means a geographic concentration or emerging concentration of interdependent industries with direct service, supplier, and research relationships, or independent industries that share common resources in a given regional economy or labor market. An industry cluster is a group of employers closely linked by a common product or services, workforce needs, similar technologies, and supply chains in a given regional economy or labor market.

(j) “Industry-driven regional collaborative” means a regional public, private, or other community organizational structure that jointly defines priorities, delivers services across programs, sectors, and in response to, or driven by, industry needs. The industry-driven regional collaborative projects meet the needs and fill gaps in services that respond to regional business, employee, and labor needs. These service-delivery structures offer flexibility to local communities and partners to meet the identified needs in an economic development region. Industry-driven regional collaboratives are broadly defined to allow maximum local autonomy in developing projects responding to the needs of business, industry, and labor.

(k) “Industry sector” means those firms that produce similar products or provide similar services using somewhat similar business processes.

(l) “Initiative” is an identified strategic priority area that is organized statewide, but is a regionally based effort to develop and implement innovative solutions designed to facilitate the development, implementation, and coordination of community college economic development and related programs and services. Each initiative shall be workforce and business development driven by a statewide committee made up of community college faculty and administrators and practitioners and managers from business, labor, and industry. Centers, industry-driven regional collaboratives, and other economic and workforce development programs performing services as a part of the implementation of an initiative shall coordinate services statewide and within regions of the state, as appropriate.

(m) “Job development incentive training” means programs that provide incentives to employers to create entry-level positions in their businesses, or through their suppliers or prime customers, for welfare recipients and the working poor.

(n) “Matching resources” means any combination of public or private resources, either cash or in-kind, derived from sources other than the economic and workforce development program funds appropriated by the annual Budget Act, that are determined to be necessary for the success of the project to which they are applied. The criteria for in-kind resources shall be developed by the board of governors, with advice from the chancellor and the California Community Colleges Economic and Workforce Development Program Advisory Committee, and shall be consistent with generally accepted accounting practices for state and federal matching requirements. The ratio of matching resources to economic and workforce development program funding shall be determined by the board of governors.

(o) “Performance improvement training” means training delivered by a community college that includes all of the following:

(1) An initial needs assessment process that identifies both training and nontraining issues that need to be addressed to improve individual and organizational performance.

(2) Consultation with employers to develop action plans that address business or nonprofit performance improvements.

(3) Training programs that link individual performance requirements with quantifiable business measures, resulting in demonstrable productivity gains, and, as appropriate, job retention, job creation, improvement in wages, or attainment of wages that provide economic security.

(p) “Program” means the California Community Colleges Economic and Workforce Development Program established under this part.

(q) “Region” means a geographic area of the state defined by economic and labor market factors containing at least one industry cluster and the cities, counties, or community college districts, or all of them, in the industry cluster’s geographic area. For the purposes of this chapter, “California Community College economic development regions” shall be designated by the board of governors based on factors, including, but not necessarily limited to, all of the following:

(1) Regional economic development and training needs of business and industry.

(2) Regional collaboration, as appropriate, among community colleges and districts, and existing economic development, continuous workforce improvement, technology deployment, and business development.

(3) Other state economic development definitions of regions.

(r) “Sector strategies” means prioritizing investments in competitive and emerging industry sectors and industry clusters on the basis of labor market and other economic data that indicate strategic growth potential, especially with regard to jobs and income. Sector strategies focus workforce investment in education and workforce training programs that are likely to lead to high-wage jobs or to entry-level jobs with well-articulated career pathways into high-wage jobs. Sector strategies effectively boost labor productivity or reduce business barriers to growth and expansion stemming from workforce supply problems, including skills gaps, and occupational shortages by directing resources and making investments to plug skills gaps and provide education and training programs for high-priority occupations. Sector strategies may be implemented using articulated career pathways or career lattices and a system of stackable credentials. Sector strategies often target underserved communities, disconnected youth, incumbent workers, and recently separated military veterans. Cluster-based sector strategies focus workforce and economic development on those sectors that have demonstrated a capacity for economic growth and job creation in a particular geographic area. Industry clusters are similar to industry sectors, but the focus is on a geographic concentration of interdependent industries.

(s) “Skills panel” means a collaboration which brings together multiple employers from an industry sector or industry cluster with career technical educators, including, but not limited to, community college career technical education faculty, and other stakeholders which may include workers and organized labor to address common workforce needs. Skills panels assess workforce training and education needs through the identification of assets relevant to industry need, produce curricula models, perform job task analysis, define how curricula articulate into career pathways or career lattices or a system of stackable credentials, calibrate career readiness, develop other assessment tools, and produce career guidance tools.

(t) “Stackable credentials” means a progression of training modules, credentials, or certificates that build on one another and are linked to educational and career advancement.

(Amended by Stats. 2013, Ch. 76, Sec. 52. (AB 383) Effective January 1, 2014. Repealed as of January 1, 2023, pursuant to Section 88651.)