“Job Corps is conducting an exhaustive review of its current operating costs in order to make changes to ensure that program costs are sustainable in the future,” Fillichio said.
Closed doors
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The unemployment rate for young adults ages 16 to 24 was 17.4 percent in January. It was 28 percent for African Americans in that age group, a demographic that made up nearly 51 percent of Job Corps students during the 2011 program year.
Teryn McRae, 20, said he was approved for enrollment at Job Corps and was to begin training Feb. 5. The Northeast Washington resident planned to study computer networking, a specialty he hoped could help him better provide for his 1-year-old daughter. Previously, he had worked minimum-wage jobs at chain restaurants.
McRae said the enrollment freeze “crushed me because all my avenues closed. I felt like all my windows and doors of opportunity closed.”
McRae said he does not know what his immediate next step is, but he said he may try to enroll in Job Corps when the freeze is lifted.
The National Job Corps Association, the group that represents the contractors that operate the job centers, has been highly critical of the freeze. It said 44,928 people are enrolled at Job Corps centers. The association said about 10,000 people in the system are in the same position as McRae.
“I’m unaware that it’s ever had a period that reflects such outright maladministration,” said Earl Pomeroy, a member of the association’s board of directors and a former Democratic congressman from North Dakota. “Drifting through a fiscal year and then slamming the doors shut for new students disrupts the core mission of Job Corps.”
The program includes one job center in the District of Columbia and another in Prince George’s County.
The association projects that the Potomac Job Corps Center in Southwest Washington will be unable to serve 317 new students as a result of the enrollment suspension and will have to shed 107 jobs. At the Woodland Job Corps Center in Laurel, the group predicts it will be unable to serve 198 new students and will be forced to cut 67 employees.
All told, the association estimates that the suspension of new enrollment could result in nearly 30,000 lost training opportunities nationwide. That projection is based on the weekly rate at which slots for new students open up at each center. It also says the enrollment suspension could cost up to 10,000 center jobs.
The estimates, however, do not include the exceptions the Labor Department has agreed to make for the homeless, runaways and those in foster care.
In 2010, the Labor Department restructured how it handles Job Corps, removing the budgeting and procurement operations from the Office of Job Corps and placing them in separate divisions within the Employment and Training Administration.
Woes after restructuring
Following that move, the Job Corps program incurred a budget shortfall of more than $30 million during its 2011 cycle, prompting contract modifications and two brief enrollment stoppages, in addition to other cost-saving measures such as curtailing TV advertising and cutting administrative costs.
The Labor Department told a Senate oversight committee in July 2012 that its restructuring plan would help avoid future budget problems, saying the moves would “help ensure that program obligations remain within the appropriation level.”
Instead, a deficit nearly twice as large occurred during the current budget cycle, according to the National Job Corps Association.
The association wrote to Labor on Oct. 1 and Jan. 17 outlining alternatives to address the financial troubles. The association says the Labor Department should recoup the money from local job centers that spent less than their budget allocations because of cost-saving measures.
It also suggested shifting nearly $16 million from the Job Corps capital budget, which includes funds for construction and maintenance. Congress’s last few spending bills have allowed the Labor Department to make such fund transfers, and the agency has taken advantage of that option for the past several years but did not for the latest cycle.
For 2013, Labor has asked Congress for $75 million to fund Job Corps construction. Of that money, $18 million would go toward “minor repair and replacement,” while $28 million would finance “building rehabilitation and replacement projects.”
Labor declined to comment on whether it considered the National Job Corps Association’s recommendations before implementing the freeze.
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