Ron Painter has been asked to explore how well the curriculum at A.W. Beattie Career Center meshes with the job market its students will face.

The challenge is a new one for Mr. Painter, head of the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board, and one he finds intriguing.

His usual clients are at the other end of the continuum -- corporations, planners and government policy makers trying to get a handle on workforce needs and grant opportunities.

Mr. Painter has told Beattie he'd be happy to lend his insight, but for a proposed amount of time and cost -- roughly six months and $25,000 -- that the Beattie board is not keen to make.

Still, as the McCandless school sees whether it can wring a better deal from Mr. Painter, Beattie delegates from North Allegheny, Fox Chapel Area and Hampton school districts have said his input could ease their opposition to the stalled, roughly $20 million expansion of the nearly 40-year-old vo-tech center.

That's where things have reached a high simmer, as Beattie board members challenge each other's version of what Mr. Painter has already told them about what's hot and cold when it comes to jobs.

Mr. Painter isn't sure what to make of all the attention he's been getting.

What he does want to make clear, however, is that his preliminary presentation to Beattie board members this summer was intended to be a regional overview, not a program-by-program critique of Beattie.

"There was not any intent on our part to make definitive statements about what they were doing," said Mr. Painter, who made presentations to the Beattie board and to North Allegheny's, one of the nine school districts that send students to Beattie and share in its cost.

"Could we take a look at what Beattie was doing and reference that back to what the labor market is doing and what it might do?" he said. "The answer to that is yes, we were willing to do that. But it's a lot more complicated thought process than taking a list of courses and a list of job orders of what we see."

A majority of Beattie board members voted against hiring Three Rivers. Board President Lynn Evans did not take part in the vote because she was absent, but she has agreed to see whether Mr. Painter can put something together that is quicker and cheaper.

Three Rivers is a nonprofit, government-related agency that oversees the network of Pennsylvania CareerLink centers. The Three Rivers board is appointed by the mayor of Pittsburgh and the Allegheny County chief executive.

It also sponsors various workshops and has penned job-market reports tracking what many consider the region's Big Five job fields: health care, financial services, manufacturing, hospitality/tourism and information technology.

While Three Rivers has held forums geared toward students, it hasn't done anything as specific as evaluating how one school's programs and student pool matches with tomorrow's workplace needs.

That's what makes the idea exciting, Mr. Painter said, but also expensive.

For more than a year, Beattie officials have been sweating the details of a state-mandated renovation project that could cost anywhere from $10 million to $22 million. All 18 board members agree that the leaking roof needs to be fixed, safety measures taken and more room provided for overloaded programs such as auto body.

Beyond that, there's been little consensus about what else should be fixed, expanded or upgraded.

In June, Hampton delegate Amy Bianconi urged Beattie officials to hire Three Rivers to study the programs offered at the school and to make recommendations "regarding the programs that would most greatly benefit our students, and the facilities required to provide the necessary education, prior to moving forward with the renovation project."

Most Beattie members remain skeptical. While they respect Mr. Painter's credentials, they question how valid his forecasts would be and thus, whether they're worth the time and money.

Pine-Richland's Rich Herko said that whatever findings Mr. Painter came up with likely would make the capital project even more expensive. He foresaw a study that required space for new programs without tackling the hard part -- recommending what existing ones should be eliminated.

Mr. Painter doesn't pretend to have a crystal ball, no more than Wall Street financial analysts do.

"As workforce development becomes more sophisticated," he said, "the goal is to identify what factors most influence an industry and how a company can structure its workplace to best take advantage of those trends."

"Are we where we need to be today? No, I'm the first to admit it. But there is a much better sense that workforce professionals make a good investment in education and training."