Funding freeze shocks employment service providers

By David F. Rooney

Employment service providers are in a state of shock after being quietly told that federal funding administered by the Ministry of Housing and Social Development for employment services and training, has either evaporated or been frozen.

Either way, service providers such as the Revelstoke Employment Services Centre and the private contractors have been told there will be no new funding for the Skills Development Employment Benefits Program, which provides money for skills development courses, employment wage subsidies and self-employment programs, until April. The program is funded under the Canada-BC Labour Market Development Agreement, which was signed in 2008. The LMDA provides funding, $350 million of it provided by Ottawa, for this and other labour programs. The programs they fund are largely administered by private employment service firms. Then late last week, the provincial government ordered the Skills Development Employment Benefits program to rein in spending on all retraining programs and to cap all tuition funding effective immediately.

“It’s not good news,” said RESC Manager Cathie Thacker. “We just went to a stakeholders meeting a week ago and then they dropped this on us.”

She said private contractors who deliver many of the programs have been told that “training dollars have been frozen for the remainder of the fiscal year.” New funding will be available as of April 1, Thacker said.

Christine Bowman of Bowman Employment Services, which offers skills training to about 1,000 clients in the Okanagan, Thompson and Shuswap regions including 35 people in Revelstoke, said “it’s a terrible situation for people who need help.”

“I was surprised at how quickly that information (the decision to freeze funding) rolled out,” she said. “The flip side is that I’ve seen the huge amount of money spent to counteract unemployment and pay for skills development. Still, I had my own little thought: ‘Are they going to run out of money?’”

Roberta Ciolli of Community Futures, who administers the self-employment program in Revelstoke, said she was told at the beginning of last week not to take any new clients. She said the freeze will not affect any people who are currently enrolled in the self-employment program.

While funding is secure for people currently enrolled in these programs, there is no new cash right now to help people acquire the skills they need to compete effectively in the job market.

Here in Revelstoke, between Dec. 1, 2008, and Nov. 30 this year, there were 44 people enrolled in skills development programs, eight in the wage-subsidy program and 16 using the self-employment program. That’s up from 2007-2008 when there were a total of 27 people using these programs. Elsewhere in the Kootenays and Boundary district 450 people are enrolled in similar programs. In 2007 there were 350 using them.

This could not come at a worse time. Unemployment is at 9.2 per cent and with Christmas coming any hope for a merry one has simply evaporated.

Columbia River-Revelstoke MLA Norm Macdonald said the funding problem smacks of mismanagement by the government.

“This program for unemployed workers is vital,” he said Wednesday morning.  ”LMDA provides that extra bit of assistance that gets workers back in the workforce. Particularly in this time, when so many forest-workers are facing unemployment, we must invest in retraining.  But instead of focusing on that priority, the Liberal government has completely dropped the ball.”

he said that in years past, the federal government ensured that the program ran all year, providing support from the beginning of the fiscal year until the end.

“The provincial government has so mismanaged this file that this fiscal year this program will only be funded for about eight months,” Macdonald said. “I’ve been contacted by constituents who have lost access to the training they need because the funding has dried up, and the negative effects on individuals’ ability to get back to work will be profound.”

A ministry representative denied that funding had been cut.

“Funding remains fully intact for training and skills development under the Labour Market Development Agreement,” aid the official who declined to be identified.

“Some of our service providers have fully committed their annual budgets due to increased demand for training, and we are working with them to find a solution. We are taking a provincial perspective when allocating funding to ensure we provide support to as many British Columbians with their training needs as possible.

“In saying this, we are managing our training budgets closely to ensure our funding flows fairly and equitably for all clients.”

You can read about the NDP’s reaction to the freeze here: http://www.revelstokecurrent.com/2009/12/09/ndp-attacks-skills-development-funding-freeze/