County government has a large stake in the creation of employment and training systems at the local level to insure that Federal, state, and local dollars are spent effectively. The door to the creation of an employment and training system has been opened by the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) through the establishment of Private Industry Councils (PICs). These PICs should be given tools to carry out employment and training development through strategic planning. Of the various methods of strategic planning, Strategic Issue Management is the most likely to result in success. It allows for broad environmental scanning to identify strategic issues and detailed scanning and strategy formulation for each issue. By adding to this the requirement that strategic planning address issues that cut across organizational lines, county elected officials, working with their PICs, will be able to move into the realm of system building. County leadership is needed to move PICs in the direction of Strategic Issue Management. Careful attention should be given to having PICs plan their outcomes and to deciding who will be responsible for the various stages of the issue management process. To carry out this process, PICs should conduct an organizational inventory to determine what human resources exist within the community and carefully select the specific issues that they want to address. Issues must be understood in detail, specific change targets must be identified, and implementation plans must be put in place. Strategic Issue Management is a powerful tool to aid county government in the development of a local employment and training system. (KC)