Central Texas Council of Governments JTPA Title III Demonstration Grant

U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General

Audit Report

CENTRAL TEXAS COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS JTPA TITLE III DEMONSTRATION GRANT

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Report Title: Central Texas Council of Governments JTPA Title III Demonstration Grant

Report Number: 06-98-003-03-340

Issue Date: February 6, 1998

We conducted an audit of a Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), Title III, Career Management Account (CMA) Demonstration Grant awarded to the Central Texas Council of Government (CTCOG) to determine how the CMAs operated under this grant and to determine if there was a significant difference between the training strategies and outcomes for the CMA participants and control group of regular JTPA Title III participants.

We found that:

Twenty percent of the grant funds were paid in stipends to all CMA participants regardless of need or amount of time spent in the classroom. JTPA requires that direct support payments to participants must be based on need. We questioned $117,785 stipend payments.
Participants were not terminated from the grant after 90 days of inactivity apparently in order to avoid negative terminations from the program.
Program outcomes for control group participants were better than the CMA participants. Only 51 percent of CMA participants obtained jobs after training compared to 71 percent for control group participants. Furthermore, CMA participants' starting wage was $10.45 per hour compared to $12.65 per hour for control group participants.

Recommendations

We recommended the Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training:

disallow the $117,785 in questioned stipend payments during our audit period and any such additional payments after the audit period;

ensure that all grantees operating demonstration grants currently, and in the future, follow guidelines regarding participants' termination from the programs after inactivity for 90 days to allow for non-biased comparisons of program outcomes between demonstration programs and regular JTPA programs; and
encourage grantees operating Title III demonstration grants, and other Title III programs, to limit enrollment to those participants who are truly dislocated workers, not college students seeking a financing source for their education.

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