×

Career centers close as funds cut

The OneWorkSource centers in Clinton, Essex, Franklin and Hamilton counties have shut down and furloughed staff, making things a little harder for the unemployed even as their ranks swell due to the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus crisis has driven the U.S. unemployment rate up to 14.7%, a level last seen in the 1930s when the country was in the throes of the Great Depression, the Associated Press reported Friday.

OneWorkSource is a public-private partnership based in Plattsburgh and overseen by the North Country Workforce Development Board, whose members are appointed by the four counties’ boards. Its career centers in Plattsburgh, Malone, Elizabethtown and Indian Lake help people find jobs, training and education, supplementing the efforts of the state Department of Labor. OneWorkSource announced the centers’ closure Thursday night.

It blames the state Division of the Budget for withholding federal funds, allocated to the North Country region through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. The career centers will stay closed until the state releases the funds, according to OneWorkSource Executive Director Sylvie Nelson of Saranac Lake.

“This is an unacceptable situation, given the severity of the increase in NYS Unemployment Insurance services,” Nelson said in a press release. “The role of the OneWorkSource Centers and its partners is to complement UI and other unemployment services. We are not afforded to play our role in our local economy.”

The state Division of the Budget said the federal government is to the one to blame.

“New York State has a $13 billion hole in its budget that the federal government must repair,” agency spokesman Freeman Klopott wrote in an emailed statement to the Enterprise. “This hole is compounded by the 90-day delay for income tax payments imposed by the federal government in response to the Coronavirus, which is causing a cash-flow crunch for the State. As a result, New York State must hold and review every penny, and after careful additional scrutiny, payment will be processed. Every New York household is spending their nickels with extraordinary care, and New Yorkers expect the State to do that too — and we are.”

“I understand the state’s need for fiscal accountability in these unprecedented times,” Nelson responded Friday evening. “But federal funding typically passed to local communities to run programs, like workforce development, being held up by DOB, affect those who are most vulnerable at this time: the unemployed. OneWorkSource Centers should be part of the state’s solution but instead we are sidelined. We hope this situation is resolved quickly so we can continue putting North Country residents back to work.”

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

Starting at $4.75/week.

Subscribe Today