On The Memphis Area Career Center

(Photo: MACC)

According to the Commercial Appeal, the Memphis Area Career Center--the public agency that operates in the limbo of umemployment and employment--is in a state of disarray.

Is that a presumption? There is a difference between problems and challenges.

An excerpt:

The Memphis Area Career Center, an agency that uses public money to train people for jobs and help employers find workers, is in disarray, according to state and local officials.

Its spending and management have brought it under scrutiny from state government, which could take it over if improvements aren't made.

"We've got some management concerns and we're trying to address them," said Susan Cowden, administrator of the workforce development division of the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

The state office grew so concerned that it hired a consultant to perform a full management and performance review of the center. The report is due today.

Last year, the center had to return $437,987.39 because it failed for two years to spend it. The return of the money was a first in Tennessee. The money -- federal dollars funneled through state government -- was earmarked for training people who had been laid off or were going to be.

Center executive director Isaac Garrett said his staff tried its best to alert organizations and individuals that help was available, but some workers just didn't want to take advantage of the training.

"The challenge we have is when someone is laid off, either they try to find a job right away or they have severance pay and try to live off their severance," he said. "At the point they lose their severance pay, instead of going to training, they need money and they go to work.

"Our hope is we don't ever send anything back," said Garrett, who was appointed in 2003 by Mayor Willie Herenton.

According to the article, the disarray seems to be characterized by the inability to spend federal funds as well as its unresponsiveness to other organizations and businesses that also do job training.

There probably is a disconnect but it's probably more multi-faceted than what the article implies. For instance, the article does not really examine in great detail how the federal money should be applied. Are the guidelines so strict that MACC cannot upgrade its own technology or staff?

How does the process work? It can't be as simple as the federal funds being allocated through the state and then the local agency just goes out and finds workers to help.

What if those workers don't want help? Garrett speaks to that, and it really is a challenge.

In other words, the guy in the above picture would never really go to the Memphis Area Career Center for help--even though the MACC wants you to think that he would. Why wouldn't he? Pride, for one reason.

I'm just sayin, as a person who has experienced unexpected umemployment, my first inclination, my first natural response, was to go and find another job and not to seek "job training" at the Memphis Area Career Center. An excerpt from the MACC's site:

The center was established as a result of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 passed by Congress. Previously, customers wanting services from programs such as Unemployment Insurance, Title1, Job Service, Veteran Services, Adult Basic Education, Vocational Rehab, Department of Human Services, and Title V had to seek those services from several providers at multiple locations. The Memphis Area Career Center integrates the resources and activities of these programs into a streamlined system. The Center is a way of reinventing government services so that employers and job seekers an get better, more comprehensive service in one place, without having to navigate a bureaucratic maze of programs and services.

Sounds like something geared toward low-income workers or folks who have been out of the workforce for years. That didn't seem to apply to me, a middle-class, college-educated and skilled laborer. In hindsight, there's some real denial in living off a severance. But it is what it is.

Still, this illustrates the stigmas that the MACC is up against, which is one of the reasons that it is vastly under-using the money it receives. I mean, it's not like someone is embezzling the funds or taking expensive trips. The MACC is doing what it is required to do by law. What's wrong with that?

But I digress. The larger story is missed here.

No one has really reported on how unemployment affects people who feel that they have the skills to work for anyone but can't find comparable work in Memphis. It's a pressure compounded by the angst of severing local ties (i.e. pulling kids out of school, etc.) in order to pay bills. That uprooting is under-reported.

Also, how successful are job-training programs anyway?

This article could have started exploring these issues as a backdop, as context, to the release of the state's full management and performance review of MACC. That review, according to the CA, is due to be released today.

To me, the headline seems telling: "Career Center can't get job done." I get the sense that there is some jadeness, that ineptness is somehow inherent in government. It's an unwillingness to bestow the benefit of the doubt.

MBJ: The challenge in Cincinnati.

ON AN UNRELATED, BUT RELATED, NOTE: Hallmark shutting down in Southaven.
*Lamar gets a motel. Quote of the day:

"We're not concerned about existing hotels. We feel we have a better product," [Architect Samuel Turner III] said. He said the property would have 24-hour security and a reputable franchise. "I assure you we will not spend $2 million to deal with prostitutes and drugs."

But former NY Gov. Spitzer might. (Couldn't resist.) Kidding aside, I don't think residents understand that it really is difficult to fight a project that meets all the criteria outlined in planning and development ordinances. I'm just sayin, "I don't like it" isn't a criteria.

*MDN: The jobs program.