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January 29, 2008

Private firm handles job services for Kansas

Source: By Bobbi Mlynar, Emporium Gazette (KS), 02:10 p.m., January 28, 2008

The state of Kansas expects to announce plans this afternoon about help that will be available to Tyson Foods workers who will be displaced when the slaughter division closes within the next 60 days.

...... Betty Senn, now director of the Emporia Convention and Visitors Bureau, formerly was manager of the Emporia and Paola job services centers. She was one of many state employees whose jobs were eliminated when the state ceded its operation of job services centers to Dynamic Educational Systems, a private business.

Senn was contacted this morning to gain information about what Tyson workers might expect in the way of hands-on assistance from the state. She emphasized that she is no longer a part of that system, but was willing to talk about services offered in similar situations in the past. She expects those types of services to continue.

Posted by Info Center at 10:19 AM in Job Training |
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November 30, 2006

Cities, towns told to pay up

Source: By Philip Marcelo, Providence Journal (RI), Thursday, November 30, 2006


Eight municipalities in northern Rhode Island have lost their fight not to cover a $1.6-million debt left when a state and federally financed job-training program went belly up more than eight years ago. ……. The council, which at one point had as many as 40 employees working out of its three offices in Lincoln, Pawtucket, and Woonsocket, hired contractors to run job and computer training sessions for hundreds of people looking to break into the customer-service, hospitality, food, and other industries. But the managers of the council overspent the $3 million in federal and state money that kept the organization afloat, because, they say, they relied on flawed auditing reports by KPMG Peat Marwick, the accounting firm hired to formulate the annual budgets. ……… The state shut the operation down in 1998 after a $200,000 budget shortfall was discovered. That led to the full-blown investigation of the company’s finances that disclosed a bigger financial mess. ….. But when the debtors came looking for their money, council officials pointed to the municipalities that benefited from the organization’s services to foot the bill.


Posted by Info Center at 2:09 PM in Horror Stories | Job Training |