2 Nuts and Bolts quality of their implementation through incentives, guidance on how the Job-Driven Checklist can help improve programs, and dissemination of best practices. Contracted programs. Finally, some federal programs are run by federal staff or by federal contractors. Depending on the terms of the contract, the federal government should have broad control over how these programs are run and will have an easier time implementing the job-driven elements than in programs that are run at the state or local levels. The Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum to executive departments and agencies setting forth the seven job-driven elements, as well as a “checklist” of concrete steps these agencies can take in competitive, formula, and federally run programs. The memorandum directs agencies to incorporate these elements into every employment and training program to the extent practicable and feasible within the law and the program’s mission. The memorandum also emphasized the need to measure employment outcomes (e.g., whether program graduates get and keep jobs). Most federal agencies have the authority to add such measures to both their competitive and formula grants. All job-training programs that have the authority to do so will measure and report on employment outcomes, including an additional seven programs that will establish or improve their reporting. Maximize the Effectiveness of Over 25 Competitive Grant Programs The federal Government has a great deal of discretion in its competitive grant programs and plans to use this discretion to ensure that training programs funded by competitive grants are job-driven. OMB is calling on federal agencies to implement this checklist into competitive grants (to the extent statutorily permitted) in one of three ways. 1. Required strategies or conditions of grant award. The checklist elements may be required strategies for applicants. For example, applicants could be required to demonstrate their abilities to use local labor market information to assess which jobs are hiring in the local economy. Implementation of some checklist elements may also be pre-conditions for applicants to be considered for a grant awards. 2. Putting in allocation criteria. Agencies may choose to put the checklist elements in the scoring criteria. Applicants would be awarded points for committing to engage in activities aligned with the elements and could be awarded additional points for demonstrating a capacity to implement the checklist more fully. For example, applicants engaging employers fully in curriculum design could be awarded additional points. 3. Bonus points. Agencies could provide bonus points to applicants that address the checklist elements or establish priorities for projects that advance the job-driven elements, giving such applicants an improved chance of receiving grant awards. Any one or a combination of these approaches could be used within a given grant program. Agencies will be required to implement the checklist into their competitive grant applications starting with st applications for funding available after October 1 , 2014. About $1.4 billion in competitive grants will be given out next year. This is in addition to $950 million in grants that have already been 33