THE REALITY OF THE WORKFORCE INVESTMENT ACT

The reality of the Workforce Investment Act

April 16, 2003

Beware the Hype spoke to the building of a burgeoning bureaucracy that would transgress state lines and establish regions within regions.

One of the reader responses to that article, from an individual who has "been there and done that," needs voice. What follows is his experience with the new and improved One Stop Career System which will function under the auspices of the Workforce Development Board.

Dave's Experience With the WIA —

The real story about Workforce Development is the way the money is spent.

The regions get hundreds of millions of dollars, the Individual Centers get millions of dollars, and non profit, for profit businesses get hundreds of thousands of dollars from referrals.

What did I, a client, get?

I am disabled. I applied for Vocational Rehabilitation Services through Workforce Development. Vocational rehab handled my case file for one year.

The above agency contracted services thorough independent contractors at $50 to $100 per hour. These contractors were either agencies, non profits, or private individuals. The money is called "client services" money. But the client never gets any of it.

After a year of listening to their lies, deceptions, and lack of success, I requested my case file to be closed.

All that money!!! What did I get?

I received some useless services called: guidance and counseling and referral. Every time I was referred to another agency or private contractor, that agency and contractor received a "fee for services". In turn, that agency would refer me to another. Each agency would then report me as a client to their reporting agency, who in tern reported to their regional agency. I even had one agency ask me to write them a letter of support, so they could ask for more grant money!!!!

The money flowed like a river. Everyone made money. Except for me. I received guidance and counseling, and lots and lots of referrals. What a big scam.

If I had received in cash, only a small percentage of that money, I could have spent that money myself in order to set up the very small home business that I wanted set up to supplement my disability income.

I spent hours and hours going through the above process. I never received one cent or any tangible, or useful to me for my time, efforts, and cooperation.

I'll starve before I go back to those filter feeders.

Yes, what a scam. But this is the reality of workforce training and retraining. The individual becomes a statistic—a number on a sheet to keep the money coming in, to keep the government paychecks coming, to justify the existence and further expansion of the system created and the positions within that system.

People involved in this system are not hesitant to contend that all of this restructuring is for the benefit of the people. Not hardly. Under systems governance, it is achieving the system goals—the exit outcomes—that is important, that is imperative. To that end, people must meet the needs of the system, not visa-versa. This individual's experience is a prime example of what it means to meet the needs of the system.

But what happens when the efficient use of tax dollars is not a priority of the system? Money becomes no object in a system where accountability is to the system and not to the taxpayer. The result is that it is not long before more is being spent than is coming in, as is happening in many states right now.

This is but one of the reasons that systems governance has failed in every nation in which it has been implemented, to include the USSR under communism. The system, by its very nature, breeds waste and mediocrity, not efficiency and quality. Although proponents of systems governance believe they now have a way to leverage those factors affecting the system in the ability of computers to analyze statistical information, computers are only as capable and efficient as the human brain behind them--the human brain subject to the fallacies and frailties of human nature.

This individual's experience, while not affecting the statistics, does affect the system as a whole just as it did in the USSR, being part of what eventually caused the system there to implode. It will do the same here, driving the American economy into the ground, subjecting the American people to another depression worse than the Great Depression, and leaving the United States vulnerable to invaders.