Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 11, 1995 TAG: 9505110040
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A House of Representatives proposal would yank funding from this year's Summer Youth Employment and Training Program. The national program provides work experience and academic enrichment for disadvantaged young people - an estimated 1,200 in the Roanoke and New River valleys.
The House has proposed rescinding $867 million already allocated for this summer's program and providing nothing next year. The Senate has proposed maintaining funding this year but abolishing it next year.
A conference committee is meeting this week to craft a compromise, which must go back to the House and Senate for a vote and meet President Clinton's approval.
The uncertainty has left agencies in a planning quandary, said Ronnie Martin, assistant director of AT&S, an Abingdon-based company that administers the program for the New River-Mount Rogers Private Industry Council. Jobs must be lined up. Students must be recruited.
"You can plan, and we've done that," he said. "But even the best plans are not worth a hill of beans without the money. This is anything but typical. This is the worst we've ever seen it. We're at a standstill."
Vickie Price, administrator of the Roanoke-based Fifth District Employment and Training Consortium, said she has told parents that program planning is proceeding as usual but that "funding might not continue as usual."
"It leaves us out on a limb," she said. "We'll be up a creek if they stop everything."
The consortium administers program funds, contracting with the Roanoke and Roanoke County school systems, Total Action Against Poverty and Dabney Lancaster Community College in Clifton Forge to operate the program.
Funds are distributed to states according to a formula based partly on unemployment and poverty levels. States then allocate the money to cities and counties.
Participants, ages 14-21, spend eight to 10 weeks during the summer in minimum-wage jobs, which include clerical work in city offices, maintenance work for public properties, recreational work at parks, nursing assistance in hospitals, and supervising and tutoring children at day-care centers.
A conference committee report - expected this week or early next week - "will tell whether or not there is summer youth money," said Clarence Carter, executive director of the Governor's Employment and Training Department in Richmond.
Typically, the Private Industry Council's contracts with agencies that operate the program are up and running by April 15, Martin said. But because of funding uncertainty, the council voted this year to "potentially" fund five agencies that for several years have contracted with the council to operate the program.
"Our problem right now is not knowing what's going to happen," Martin said. "We've told these agencies we're not signing any contracts committing to any money."
Sara Holland, director of youth services for Total Action Against Poverty, has watched the federal government chip away at Summer Youth Employment and Training dollars over the years. TAP once had 300 to 400 participants in the program. This summer, it can serve only about 100.
The uncertainty of funding has always been a problem, Holland said.
"We'd get some more money right in the middle of the program and have to go back out and pull some more kids in," she said. This year, "it's difficult to implement [the program], having the uncertainty of whether we'll have to stop or not."
The lack of committed funding could stem from lack of understanding, Holland said. The program has been criticized as merely providing income for low-income youth. But that isn't true, she said.
The program "helps kids develop work ethic, gives them good work experience, helps them stay in school and if they are dropouts, makes them more employable," she said. "It gives youngsters a chance to earn money during the summer, where otherwise, they'd be on the streets, idle."
Martin agrees.
"I've seen it help a lot of kids," he said. "They learn about work. They learn how to manage money. They realize what it's like to roll out of bed at 7 o'clock and work like a regular employee.
"If they don't fund, kids will suffer. And if they do but it's late in the game, some kids are going to fall through the cracks."
by CNB