Oates Details Cost-Cutting, Financial Controls For Senators Probing Job Corps Budget Gap

Assistant Labor Secretary Jane Oates told a Senate subcommittee March 12 that a $100.5 million budget shortfall that forced Job Corps to stop accepting new students was caused by inadequate staffing and monitoring.

“We want to suspend this enrollment freeze as soon as possible,” Oates testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety. She said the date Job Corps can resume enrolling students depends on the amount of cost savings her agency, the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration, can negotiate with Job Corps center contractors.

“This is very basic budgeting,” subcommittee ...