The Social Equity Council, a major regulator of Connecticut’s adult-use cannabis industry, may use a point system to determine whether business license applicants have an acceptable workforce development plan.
At a meeting of the SEC’s Workforce Committee late last month, the subcommittee’s chair Kelli-Marie Vallieres — who also heads the Connecticut Workforce Unit — presented a draft rubric the Council could use when judging workforce plans.
Under Connecticut’s adult-use cannabis legalization statute, both social equity and general applicants seeking marijuana business licenses must submit a workforce development plan to reinvest or provide jobs and training opportunities for individuals in areas disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs. The law tasks the SEC with approving or rejecting each applicants’ plan.
The draft rubric consists of eight questions companies would answer and criteria for what the SEC would consider for each question. It assigns a point value for each question and says successful applicants must reach at least 80 out of a possible 100 points for approval.
For example, one question that would be worth 10 points is, “Please stipulate what educational or workforce training programs you are recruiting your prospective workforce from.” The criteria for that question reads, “We will require the utilization of CT-based workforce training programs to support the start up of new businesses by establishing a robust Cannabis workforce development pipeline.”
A 20-point question asks prospective businesses how they will try to hire from groups including racial minorities, people who live in areas disproportionately affected by the 50-year war on drugs, and individuals who have been affected by a marijuana-related arrest.Â
The draft rubric also assigns a total of 30 points to plans for training current employees and the continual recruitment and hiring of new workers.
Members of the SEC’s workforce subcommittee unanimously voted to put the rubric in front of the full Social Equity Council for review.Â
At its final meeting of the year, the Social Equity Council plans to vote on final criteria for social equity cannabis business applicants, effectively starting the clock on the formation of legal marijuana businesses in Connecticut.
The vote is scheduled for Dec. 7. If SEC members pass final criteria as planned, the Department of Consumer Protection will begin accepting applications from both social equity and general businesses 30 days later.
