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Summer youth jobs cut irks county officials
YOUNGSTOWN
Mahoning County officials are fuming about the state’s cutback in the county’s summer youth employment program from $1,067,139 last year to $246,494 this year.
This year’s summer employment program for youths from low-income families is only for 14- and 15-year-olds, whereas the program in previous years was for those between age 14 and 24.
The summer jobs program is federally funded and state administered.
This year, those between age 16 and 24 won’t be able to join a stand-alone summer employment program; but they will be able to join a new state-sponsored year-round job readiness program, known as the Comprehensive Case Management and Employment Program.
The year-round program features skills and needs assessments, academic tutoring, study-skills instruction and paid and unpaid work experience.
“How do you put them in county government offices when they’re not even 18 years old?” asked Mahoning County Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti, referring to the new limitation of stand-alone summer employment to 14- and 15-year-olds.
“I’m a little upset that they cut this program because this, to me, was a chance for all our kids to come out and have summer work to make some money,” she added.
“I’m a little upset that when something’s working, we have to shut it down,” she said.
“The people that are most vulnerable are the poor and the middle class. Those are the people we’re hurting, and these are the people with the children that actually need some help, and they cut the program,” the commissioner said.
The county does not have any available county funds that it can commit to supplement the summer youth jobs program, she said.
“The concept of a summer-only approach limits the potential opportunities for these kids,” said Jon Keeling, communications director at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
“Over the course of an entire year, they’ll be getting the support and skills that they need to complete their education and find a rewarding career as an adult. This is about staying engaged all year,” he said of the year-round program.
“Staying engaged with these kids beyond just the summer is far more beneficial to them,” he added.
“There’s no reason these young adults can’t have those same [summer job] experiences” within the year-round program, he said.
Bert Cene, director of the Workforce Development Board for Mahoning and Columbiana Counties, noted that child-labor laws limit the types of work 14- and 15- year-olds can perform.
Limiting the stand-alone summer employment program to 14- and 15-year-olds is temporary until the year-round CCMEP can be expanded to include this age group, Keeling said.
“The impact [of the cut] is that we will not have the eight-week to 10-week program we’ve run in the past, where you want to come in and just work,” for 16- to 24-year-olds, without their making a year-round commitment, Cene explained.
Some of the summer employment program participants in previous years have worked at the county commissioners office and Department of Job and Family Services.
The cut in the stand-alone summer employment program will mean a reduction from 300 participants last year to likely fewer than 100 this year, said Robert E. Bush Jr., county JFS director.
“It’s a travesty,” he said of the cut. “It was a program with very little red tape. It worked. The young people got some exposure to jobs and got some money for the summer,” he added.
“Everybody’s spirit that works with summer youth is down because it was working,” and it was cut back, Bush said of the summer youth jobs program.
The year-round program for 16- to 24-year-olds is a different concept, said Mary Ann Kochalko, chief operating officer of the Workforce Development Board.
“It’s comprehensive, and the idea behind it is that we provide all the work-readiness and career exploration skills to get people ready for long-term employment,” Kochalko said.