Although time is pressing for the county to allocate additional federal money for welfare-to-work programs, a sharply divided County Board of Freeholders voted on March 13 to delay awarding contracts in order to review what appear to be failing numbers.
A report accompanying a resolution that would have awarded contracts to a variety of providers offering instructional programs and job placement showed a dismal record of people keeping jobs.
Ben Lopez, director of the county’s welfare-to-work program, pleaded with the board to approve the additional revenue, because if the county does not spend the federal grants, the state government will take them back.
Several freeholders, including Bill O’Dea and Barry Dugan, pointed to the dismal record of accomplishment reflected in the report and suggested that the matter be delayed until the freeholders’ welfare committee could review it.
Although some cash for contracts was awarded already, $394,926 in grants would increase the amounts paid to eight Hudson County training and placement organizations – despite reports that show the programs have had a declining success rate, and in some cases, clients placed did not even last 60 days in a job.
Lopez, however, said the reports were based on results of 2001, noting that the program has been extremely successful since the implementation in 1997.
Lopez said welfare rolls in Hudson County had once exceeded 22,000 cases.
“By 1997, when the federal government passed the Personal Accountability Act and the state passed the Work First Program, Hudson County had managed to reduce its welfare roll to 16,598 cases,” he said. “The new law set a five-year time-limit for placing the remaining cases through a regimen of programming. Hudson County, through the Work Force Investment Board, put together a five-year plan. Five years later, we are now up for reauthorization on the federal level, and the states will now have to re-evaluate their statutes. The program has worked.”
Today the case load for Hudson County is 5,790 TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) cases, or a reduction of 11,000 cases.
“This means over the last five years, different programs have been provided to give them training, employment and move them into self-sufficiency,” Lopez said.
Not doing good enough
But O’Dea said the programs are failing the current population.
“These programs were able to meet the needs of the clients and brought the number down from 16,000 to roughtly 6,000,” he said. “But they have not been adapted in the ways necessary to meet the hard-to-place clients. And we continued to throw money at these programs for the last couple of years.”
Lopez said the number of clients on the TANF rolls has fallen consistently since 1997 when the new law was passed. In 1998, the number of TANF clients fell to 12,924, then to 10,588 in 1999, 8,612 in 2000, and in 2001 was 6,992.
O’Dea pointed out that the numbers shrank as the years went on, with fewer being cut from the rolls.
“Each year as the numbers come down, it gets more difficult,” he said. “And people are not getting off because of these programs, but for other reasons. I look at the report of people being placed into programs, and it doesn’t nearly equal the thousands shown to be leaving welfare each year. As you get to the hard-to-place clients, these programs need to be adjusted to deal with life-skills. We have to take a very hard look at these programs and perhaps have someone come in and evaluate these programs.”
Freeholder Chairman Sal Vega urged the freeholders to move ahead with the resolution in order to “protect the money.”
Freeholder William Braker also raised questions about the program, but said he feared the loss of the money, and suggested that the freeholders move ahead to allow the increase to be allocated for this year while the programs could be studied. He suggested that the county request the Department of Labor to evaluate the programs.
O’Dea, however, argued that a delay of two weeks was not going to jeopardize the funding – although Lopez argued that the service providers needed time to “recruit” people into the programs and that time was running out, since the money had to be allocated by June 30.
Payment to the vendors, he noted, was based upon several factors, including successful placement. He said that payment is not made for placement unless a client remained on the job for a significant period.
The job training courses included a variety of areas from office computer training and cable installation specialists to customer service. Of those served from July 1, 2001 to Sept. 30, 2001, 322 people enrolled in various programs funded by the Department of Labor, 194 completed the courses, 118 were placed in jobs, 43 of these were still on the job after 60 days, and 35 were still on the job after 90 days.
One of the educational companies training people as security guards and hotel workers enrolled 114 people during that period and placed 32 people in jobs, none of whom were still at work after 60 days.
“These are appalling numbers,” said Freeholder Barry Dugan.
Why is welfare-to-work not working?
A Hudson County adult literacy teacher who has worked in three welfare-to-work systems since 1997 detailed the problems faced by those seeking to get off welfare, and those teachers who struggle to prepare people for a life of employment.
Profit and non-profit organizations get paid per student for levels of achievement, by grants, this teacher said. That means a company doing business with the county will get some money for the number of students enrolled, more if these people reach a certain point in their lessons, still more when they graduate, and more if they are placed in a job and remain in the job 60 to 90 days.
Because many of the people who are left on the welfare rolls are toughest cases to place, these agencies often over-enroll students, drawing grant money for the earlier stages knowing they will not get paid for placement or for maintaining jobs.
“People are always dropping out of the program, so that we have plenty of seats,” this teacher said. “And they drop out for a number of reasons. Some get pregnant. Some get beaten up. Some go back onto drugs.”
The county report on the back-to-welfare programs from eight vendors show that in nearly every case, vendors exceeded their enrollment slots.
The vast majority of students in these programs are women, and ages range from mid-20s to mid-40s.
“Many of these people are what we call ‘the hidden homeless,’ “the teacher said. “Sometimes they stop coming to class because they have been living with friends or relatives and get thrown out. A good number of my students were living in shelters. Many of them are in drug programs such as Integrity House.”
Women with kids often find themselves choosing between school and home when daycare – often from family members – ceases.
“One woman in my class could not attend because a dyslexic drug dealer kicked down her door by mistake in a drug deal gone bad and shot up her apartment,” the teacher said. “I don’t know where these people go once they drop out of the program.”
People are sent to these programs by their welfare caseworkers. Case managers change frequently and often lose track of who was sent to what program.
These teaching centers pay very low wages to their instructors, so they often get people with few or no academic credentials.
“Some have no educational experience, and these places offer no workshops,” this teacher said. “You have to remember, these are career centers, not education centers, and many times all we are doing is babysitting them. They were told to come to us by their caseworkers so they won’t lose their benefits. Many of the places where the training occurs are old offices, not at all set up for teaching anybody anything.”
Training is needed on every level
Students in these classes need a combination of training, which includes life-skills and basic literacy, mathematics and such.
“Life-skills training is a slippery slope,” this teacher said. “What the schools often mean by life-skills is how to manage a bank account. I was teaching job-readiness, which includes resume writing, what to do in an interview, and how to write a cover letter. But I also included things like anger management and group dynamics – how to work in a group.”
He said that people need to learn about the nature of work; what is expected of them and why.
“How do you do things that you don’t want to do when your boss tells you to do them?” the teacher said. “While we all wish to send people out to get a decent manager, the truth is many of the managers these people will encounter on the job aren’t good people. Many of the managers have been promoted from within and never given training. So they manage by the old school: ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ I teach these people personality theory and give them a few basic types, giving them ways to work around bad managers.”
Training usually takes about six months.
People coming into the system are evaluated on what is called TABE (Test of Adult Basic Education) standardized tests.
“In some cases, you have to raise these scores before you can even get them into job training,” the teacher said. “Most of the people I’ve dealt with did poorly on these tests, and this can be for a number of reasons. Some hadn’t had breakfast. Some were intimidated by the test. Some were even good students in school, but have been out of school 15 years. Some have learning disabilities no one caught when they were in public schools. These have difficulty reading or figuring.” TABE tests are not easy to evaluate – one of those mysterious calculations done by a single testing agency in Princeton. There are also five kinds of TABE tests: preliterate, easy, medium, difficult and advanced. One of the agencies this teacher worked for only administered the medium-level test, therefore had a significant failure rate.
All jobs now require a high school degree or a Graduate Equivalence Diploma (GED).
“Testing centers are beginning to dry up,” this teacher said. “Under the law you can take the test three times for $25 and have welfare pay for it. In Essex County the test is administered in one place twice a year. This is in East Orange with only one bus that goes there.”
Students must pre-register at a one-day registration process months before the actual test.
“This is not an easy test to take,” the teacher said. “It takes seven hours to complete and is done in two parts. The 16 weeks that people have to prepare for it aren’t enough. But you need the GED for everything from janitor to a fast food worker. So people get discouraged and drop out. You don’t need a degree to be a drug dealer. In fact, many of the people I taught knew how to break up kilos into grams better than I did. I didn’t ask them how they learned.”
The problems with job placement
Job placement is extremely difficult, particularly because of two issues: lack of driver’s license and criminal records.
“Many of my people have run into problems and lost their licenses and can’t afford to pay the tickets and fines to get them back,” the teacher said. “Public transportation in New Jersey stinks. Many people can’t even afford a hoopdee [a junk car].”
Many of the employers are reluctant to hire people with criminal records, especially in areas like certified nursing aides or medical assistants.
“Home health care people often go into private homes,” this teacher said. “Would you trust someone who has been convicted of a violent crime or even burglary?”
Hudson County providers offer training in a variety of areas, including office computers, cable TV installation, customer service, retail sales training, maintenance, home health care, nursing assistance, hospitality, and security.
“People with a conviction can’t get work as a security guard,” the teacher said.
Of the 55 people who sought training for security guards in Hudson County programs from July to September, 2001, only 11 were placed in jobs, and none lasted longer than 60 days. – Al Sullivan