The new job-training plan -- Newsday.com

When Alex Hurtado was laid off four months ago, his job-search followed a familiar script.

He returned to Hempstead Works, a federally funded career-services center in Hempstead Village that offers free career counseling, fax and copier services and access to the Internet.

Hurtado had last used the one-stop service's airy fourth-floor office in 2004 to find a job in the insurance industry. He searched listings on the Web and posted his resume and, in three months, found work.

But almost two years later, he was laid off from the support staff -- just before Thanksgiving. And Hurtado, 36, a resident of Hempstead, headed back to the center.

"Without this program I'm sure it would be more difficult to find a job," he said.

Job hunting at such federally funded centers could become more difficult, some employment experts and legislators believe, if President George W. Bush's proposed budget for fiscal year 2007 is approved. That budget, which the president unveiled last month, calls for a career-training program that shifts the career-training emphasis away from one-stop career centers, like the one in Hempstead, toward a voucher system called Career Advancement Accounts.

Under that plan, unemployed workers would receive vouchers worth $3,000 that they could use for private career service agencies -- services they once received at the one-stop centers. The vouchers, which could be renewed for a second year, would be aimed at new workers, laid-off workers or those who need skill upgrades, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

The president's budget calls for $3.4 billion for the new individual accounts. By contrast, funding for the one-stop centers would plummet from $850 million to $40 million.

The Labor Department estimates that the new initiative would offer training opportunities to 800,000 workers a year, tripling the numbers helped annually under the current system.

A radically different plan

But the program is a seismic shift from when one-stop career centers were created. The Workforce Investment Act, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1998, aimed to streamline the job search process by including a variety of services for the underemployed under one roof. It replaced the Job Training Partnership Act, which focused on disadvantaged young adults and others who faced employment barriers.

New York State has 33 one-stop service areas, which are run by municipalities. In Nassau, the Town of Hempstead's Department of Occupational Resources operates the Hempstead Works location and a site in Long Beach. Oyster Bay's Division of Employment Services operates centers in Massapequa and Hicksville that serve the Towns of Oyster Bay, North Hempstead and the City of Glen Cove.

More than 300 people a week use the Hempstead Works program and about 150 seek out career services at the Massapequa center, program officials said. Suffolk County has one center, in Hauppauge, which serves about 10,000 people a year.

The Bush administration contends the program is bureaucracy-laden: Officials have said that 75 percent of the Workforce Investment Act funding supports bureaucracy, with only 25 percent directly aiding the unemployed.

"The Career Advancement Accounts flip that equation," said Emily Stover DeRocco, assistant secretary of labor for employment and training. "This is an opportunity for all of us to make sure the service delivery system really puts the resources where they belong: In the hands of the workers."

Critics, including Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), have denounced the proposed overhaul.

"These cuts will deal a cruel blow to unemployed workers struggling to get back on their feet," she said in a recent statement. "The Workforce Investment Act provides job training to workers who need it most, and we cannot turn our backs on them."

One-stop vs. self-service

The National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group, takes the position that the proposal would work against, not for, the unemployed.

"Career Advancement Accounts will leave vulnerable workers on their own in a self-service system, making critical training and career choices without guidance," the group said in a statement.