Two Atlanta City Council members on Tuesday credited the new leader of the city’s WorkSource Development agency for fighting hard to preserve a $4 million federal grant to train unemployed, underemployed, low-skilled and low-wage workers.
But ultimately, Matt Westmoreland, chair of the council’s Community Development and Human Services Committee placed the blame for the loss of the TechHire grant on the WorkSource’s past leadership.
The U.S. Department of Labor froze the grant last summer, after a review found that the city had only spent roughly $333,000 of the grant since July 2016 and that those expenses were unallowable.
The grant’s goal was to place 225 people in jobs, but it had only placed one.
According to correspondence with the labor department, the money paid for the salaries and benefits of WorkSource’s top staff.
WorkSource Atlanta is supposed to provide job training and support to the city’s at-risk youth, laid-off workers, disabled and chronically unemployed residents.
The agency’s new executive director, Katerina Taylor, told the Community Development and Human Resources Committee on Tuesday that she had presented federal officials with a plan to spend the money, but it was rejected.
She said she believed that the city would have to negotiate with the Labor Department to repay at least some of the $333,000 that was allegedly misspent.
“What has happened has been unacceptable,” Westmoreland said.
But he said he had great confidence in Taylor, who started the job last October, and in her staff.
“While this is painful and something that absolutely should not have happened, I think it’s a remnant of a very troubled past, that we are all working hard to move away from,” Westmoreland said.
Councilman Antonio Brown said that he had several conversations with Taylor about the grant.
“You said there was a chance that we would not be able to save it,” he said to her during Tuesday’s meeting. “You just continued to fight.”
Accusations that WorkSource has served as prop for fraud and abuse of government funds have beleaguered the city agency for more than a decade.
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