The head of the Atlanta Workforce Development Agency is out of a job, abruptly departing two days after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed that the agency had squandered hundreds of thousands of dollars on meager or worthless training.
A spokesman for Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed gave no reason for Deborah Lum‘s sudden retirement.
And once again Tuesday, city officials voiced support for AWDA. “We look forward to continuing the important work of this vital agency,” wrote Carlos Campos, chief spokesman for Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.
But the AJC findings that the agency paid for training phantom workers, and that much of the federal emergency job grants had gone city insiders, may have finally tipped the scales, some officials said. Another factor: AWDA is under a federal investigation for its spending.
The city has stood behind Lum, 67, as other criticism rained down during her tenure. Federal audits have found mismanagement of millions of dollars. A state review in 2011 concluded that agency’s inability to fix long-standing problems represented a “fundamental, ongoing and systemic failure on the part of management staff.” Last year, City Auditor Leslie Ward said the agency made only token efforts to fix problems and recommended it be shut down.
In response, Ward was rebuked by top city officials.
Reed may have wanted to replace Lum previously but deferred to the wishes of politicos both inside and outside City Hall who wanted the well-connected Lum protected, said Councilman Michael Julian Bond, who said he had known Lum since he was a child.
“The scuttlebutt was that he wanted Ms. Lum to move on but … heavyweights around Atlanta wanted her to stay,” said Bond, whose father was the ground-breaking politician Julian Bond.“You know how things work around Atlanta. We give leadership a chance to right the ship but usually what has happened is the ship has turned over.”
“The mayor has an opportunity to start fresh. I think he will probably look at it top to bottom to try and right that ship.”
Reed has appointed a senior advisor, Michael Sterling, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago, as the interim executive director while a national search is conducted for a permanent replacement, Campos said in an email.
Lum was hired by then-Mayor Shirley Franklin in 2003 to reform the agency after years of complaints of cronyism and corruption. She had been Southeast director of the National Alliance of Business and boasted ties to local civil rights heroes and the city’s elite.
During the Great Recession, when many Atlantans were out of work, AWDA received $1.6 million in emergency job training grants. The agency bent its own rules in awarding grant money and paid companies that were unqualified to provide the services they were supposed to teach. Many supposed participants said they were unaware they were part of a job training program.
Only about one in five participants found work according to the agency’s own estimates. City records were so shoddy that city auditors could not confirm that.
One of the main contractors for the agency’s job-training program is a nightclub owner and former city employee, who received more than $600,000 in federal money to train carpenters during a time of virtual stop in home building. He declined to be interviewed by the AJC and has hired a prominent criminal defense lawyer. Other contractors said that they followed Lum’s and her staff’s guidance.
The council may demand a stronger oversight role of the agency in light of The AJC’s findings, said Councilwoman Mary Norwood.
The council is hearing budget presentations for city departments this week and needs to be assured that the AWDA can be effective, Norwood said.
“We have to make the decision on whether or not to support this entity,” she said. “The story in Sunday’s paper was startling and disconcerting. Money that is supposed to go to training and to help people get back on their feet or get the skills they need not being used for the right purposes is startling.”
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