First, Gov. Paul LePage learned he couldn’t merge the state’s three regional boards that oversee training for unemployed workers into one statewide board over which he could exert more control. (Actually, he learned this lesson twice.)
Then, he withheld the boards’ federal funding. He even took steps to withdraw Maine entirely from the federal program that brings about $9 million for job training into the state every year. A federal judge later ruled he wasn’t allowed to hold back the funds, and his administration ultimately gave up in court.
But the LePage administration has been working on yet another way to undermine the three regional, business-led workforce boards. Now, his administration is seeking federal approval to require that they spend 70 percent of the funds they receive directly on worker training.
It sounds logical for three boards that exist for the purpose of training unemployed workers and others having a tough time in the job market.
But there’s more to it. The policy means that the three boards would have to spend 70 percent of their funding essentially on tuition that allows job seekers to enroll in adult education, community college and other career training programs. And there’s a lot more to the worker training system than tuition.
The boards would have the remaining 30 percent of their funds to pay for every other aspect of the system that each year helps thousands of laid-off workers, low-income adults, people recently released from prison and struggling young adults gain the skills they need for long-term careers.
The funding Maine receives each year from the federal government to support worker training supports a statewide network of career centers. It pays for career counselors, job coaches, caseworkers and other staff who help people find their way into the training programs to which the boards would have to devote 70 percent of their funds. It pays for the infrastructure that keeps the training system accessible to the Mainers who need the help.
Typically, the spending is split roughly into thirds — a third for direct training costs such as tuition, a third for the personal support unemployed workers and others need to find their way into a career, and a third for the costs associated with running a training system with a statewide presence.
Requiring that 70 percent of the funding meant to sustain a statewide training system be spent on only one of its functions will undermine that very system, limiting the help available to those who need it most. Without the career coach to help an unemployed worker find his way into a new field, that worker is less likely to find his way into the training program to which LePage wants to devote more of the federal funds.
Actual training doesn’t exist without the infrastructure and staff members to direct unemployed people to it and to keep them in it. That’s especially true as the state’s unemployment rate sinks lower and lower, and many of the remaining people who need jobs require extra support to help them find the work that’s right for them.
LePage is tirelessly pursuing an agenda of undermining a government structure he doesn’t like but provides valuable services. He could constructively engage in improving the system. But instead, in his “my way or the highway” approach to governing, he persists mindlessly in an effort to win the latest round of the battle, even when he loses at every turn.
There are consequences to his intransigence.
His refusal last year to release federal job training funds to the entities that could actually put them to good use cost Maine’s workers. The worker training boards had to lay off their counselors, and they stopped paying tuition for job seekers enrolled in training. Only now are they starting to rebuild.
The people who most need the help lost out because of LePage’s actions. If he has his way in his next battle, LePage will win as job seekers lose out again.
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