Nancy Kassebaum

Mrs. KASSEBAUM

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending Ashcroft amendment be set aside for the consideration of the amendment being offered by Senator Specter and Senator Simon.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I would like to yield 7 minutes to the Senator from Nebraska.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. I yield the Senator 2 minutes.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. This bill does not target any particular facility, in Kentucky or elsewhere, for closure.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from Ohio.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Yes, I would be happy to yield.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I feel very strongly that in our desire to try and improve upon the record of the Job Corps centers. We are really wanting to say that we need to be able to look at a different delivery service that will help us meet a growing population, at-risk youth, and which I think can be held to greater success by stronger accountability. Frankly, I think it is rather patronizing to suggest that these children cannot be motivated and accept the kind of discipline that they need to have to be higher achievers. We must do better, and we can do better. Father Cunningham of Detroit, MI, who runs a program called Focus Hope, and has done a superb job with that program, takes inner-city youth from Detroit and turns them into machinists and engineers. He has a remediation program which increases the math and reading levels of at-risk youth at the third and fourth grade levels in 7 weeks. It can be done. I have seen other programs that do the same thing. He has a 6- month machinist training program that places graduates in jobs, often on an auto assembly line in Detroit earning $12 to $15 an hour to start. He has created a university-level school of engineering to train these same at-risk youth to be engineers at Chrysler and Ford and General Motors. How has he done that? He does that by challenging them to be the best that they can be, by really making sure that they themselves are going to be self-disciplined enough to care about the program and strong work requirements that they have to meet. That is what the Job Corps is supposed to be all about. I think we have seen a population that has changed since the beginning of the Job Corps Program, and we need to recognize that change and provide some of the requirements that will allow it to be what it should be. I feel very strongly that we must recognize that we are falling short of the promise that the Job Corps Program has made. At a cost of almost $23,000 per student each year taxpayers are not getting their money's worth. More importantly, the at-risk youth for whom the program was designed are all too often being left empty handed as well. The placement rate was mentioned by the Senator from Iowa. Different figures will meet different facts. Maybe it is 73 percent; maybe it is a much lower rate. But the important thing is that the placement rate in the Job Corps Program right now is being based on finding a job for 20 hours. If a person finds a job for 20 hours, that then is the placement rate on which that percentage is based. I do not think that is really the kind of figure that we need to strive for and I think we do a real disservice to the youth who are in the program. In short, I feel strongly the Job Corps must change. Rather than leaving assistance for these vulnerable young men and women in the hands of the Federal Government, as the amendment before us offered by Senator Specter and Senator Simon would do, S. 143 would return the program to where I believe it best belongs--the community. I suggest, again, what S. 143 does not do, because there have been many myths that have gone around about what would be accomplished under the Workforce Development Act. It does not eliminate the Job Corps, and it is not just another job training program. It does not eliminate residential capability. That is entirely a decision that would be made by the Governor, and my guess is that where there is a residential program that is going well it will be maintained. It does not reduce funding for the Job Corps, and Senator Specter, the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee for these funds, has always maintained a strong support funding level for Job Corps. It is in a section of a bill for at-risk youth. And if that amount of money is not used on the Job Corps center, as designed for use by the State, it stays with the at-risk youth program. It cannot be used somewhere else. As the Senator from Ohio says, it puts a star behind the at-risk youth, which is where we want to focus. It does not prohibit the use of Job Corps centers by private contractors. It will not prevent well-run centers from operating. It will not prevent construction of newly proposed centers. It does not prevent a State from recruiting nonresident students. It links Job Corps centers to the community and statewide training systems established under the bill. It gives States, not the Federal Government, the primary responsibility for the operation of the Job Corps centers. It eliminates wasteful national contracting abuses documented extensively by the GAO and the inspector general. It closes the 25 consistently poor-performing centers as determined by an independent audit. It establishes strong antiviolence and antidrug policies at the Job Corps centers and reforms the entire program by returning Job Corps to local control, which I believe can be and is a proven recipe for success. I just suggest, Mr. President, that we sometimes have to be willing to be innovative and take some risks. This is not to, in any way, diminish the concept or the idea of the Job Corps program. It was a great concept when it was initiated. I believe it continues to have merit. I suggest that we are in a different time, with a different at- risk population of youth today that need to be addressed in a different way. It is not the same young men and women today that need assistance that were once there when the program started. We have to be willing to change it here and provide some different guidance to make it a more constructive, successful program. Mr. President, I reserve any time that I may have remaining. I yield the floor.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. The bill mandates that there be a national audit, over a 2-year period, of all Job Corps Centers, and that the national board make recommendations, based on objective performance criteria, to the Secretary of Labor. The national board will recommend that the 10 worst performing centers be closed in the first year after the audit, and that 15 additional poorly performing centers be closed in the following year.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. No, there is no national formula established in this bill, based on geographic or population considerations. For allocating Job Corps funds, the only factors will be performance related. In fact, section 161(c) specifically provides that each State will continue to receive the same amount of funds for Job Corps even if any of the States' centers are closed. In that case, the State could then use those funds for other at-risk youth activities. Among the factors that will be examined to determine the closure of centers are: Whether the center has experienced high incidents of criminal or violent activity; the physical condition of the facility; the degree to which the center has State and local support; and the costs of the center compared to other centers.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. I appreciate the interest of the Senator from Kentucky in the impact of this bill upon his State. And, I would point out that, in the section of the bill dealing with other training programs, the State of Kentucky, according to the Congressional Research Service, will receive more funds than it currently receives. The reason for this is that the bill alters the funding formula for job training programs, and based on the new formula, Kentucky should receive a 4.2 percent increase in job training funds.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I would like to lay out in some detail why I have reached the conclusion that something is seriously wrong with the Job Corps Program. I know this program has broad bipartisan support. The Secretary of Labor has called Job Corps the crown jewel of all Federal training programs. We have a Job Corps Center in Kansas, and I initially supported that effort. I strongly support the concept of a program that truly helps at-risk youth finish their high school education, obtain marketable job skills and get a job on which they can build a career. But Job Corps, as it is not operated by the Department of Labor, falls far short of delivering on those promises. For years, Job Corps has claimed it places 80 percent of its participants in jobs, the military, or in higher education. I was surprised to learn, however, that half of the students dropped out in their first 6 months. Despite the fact that more than 50 percent of the students find their own jobs, Job Corps claims the majority of those dropouts as successful placements. I also learned that Job Corps is by far the most expensive job training program operated by the Federal Government, with a budget of $1.2 billion. That translates to a cost of $23,000 for each student placement, far more than the average State college tuition. A year ago last June, I asked for a briefing by the Department of Labor inspector general, which has been monitoring Job Corps regularly for the last several years. One of the most troubling of the inspector general's findings was Job Corps' extremely high dropout rates. One- third of new trainees drop out within the first 90 days and, as I said, 50 percent leave within 6 months. The IG also found that only 12 percent of students were being placed in jobs requiring the skills they learned in the program. The vast majority of jobs found by Job Corps graduates were low-paying, low- skill positions. The inspector general also questioned Job Corps' claimed placement rate of 80 percent. The IG found the actual number was closer to 60 percent. However, even this number is misleading because a job placement is defined by Job Corps as being on the job for only 20 hours. In addition to poor performance and high dropout rates, the IG found very little accountability for Job Corps operators. The Department of Labor rarely took action to improve or upgrade centers that performed poorly year after year after year. The inspector general also told me about an aspect of Job Corps about which, up until that time, I knew very little about. In addition to operating Job Corps Centers, the program also contracts out to employers and labor unions for advanced training programs for Job Corps graduates. The inspector general examined one of these advanced training programs [[Page S 14970]] for computer skills and found the cost to be almost $37,000 per student. Yet, the contractor placed only 9 percent of the students in jobs using the data processing skills they learned in the program. Almost half of the program's students dropped out and were not placed. Nearly one-fourth of so-called successful placements last less than a year in the job. And yet, Mr. President, this contractor had his contract renewed without competitive bidding. In fact, none of these advanced training contracts--worth over $40 million--are subject to competitive bidding. Again, we found poor performance and little accountability within Job Corps. On October 4, 1994, the first oversight hearing in more than a decade on Job Corps was held by the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, and then-Chairman Kennedy, at my request. The essence of the testimony presented by the Department of Labor was that Job Corps was still an extremely successful program with minor problems. Reports of violence in the centers were dismissed as minor occurrences blown out of proportion. Yet following the oversight hearing, I began to receive disturbing phone calls and letters from parents, former Job Corps students and Job Corps employees about the violence that existed throughout the program. On December 13, 1994, Job Corps provided me with information on serious incidents of violence and drug use on Job Corps centers. I was told that 23 homicides were committed by Job Corps students between 1992 and 1994. For the same period, there were nearly 300 sexual assaults, 993 incidents of violence, and 416 serious drug-related incidents, all taking place on Job Corps centers. Worst of all, according to Job Corps' own figures, the program admitted 4,520 students with a criminal record, and 9,678 students with a history of psychological or emotional problems. Mr. President, this flies in the face of the statute, which requires that Job Corps enrollees be screened in order to prevent admission of students who will disrupt the program. It seems this requirement is routinely ignored. In January of this year, the Labor and Human Resources Committee held two days of oversight hearings to examine performance, accountability and the incidence of violence at Job Corps sites. Only days before the hearings, a 19-year-old girl was murdered by three other Job Corps students just outside the fence of the Knoxville Job Corps center. The police described the murder as ``ritualistic.'' Testimony at the hearing confirmed the pervasiveness of violence and lack of discipline throughout the program. The most compelling witnesses were the students themselves. Rhonda Wheeler lasted 10 days at the McKinney Job Corps Center in Texas. As for the violence on center, I saw twelve fights in the ten days I was there . . . I went to clerical class because that was one of my choices. Five minutes after I got there, two students started punching each other. Both were bleeding and one student picked up a typewriter and threw it at the other . . . Illegal drugs were rampant at McKinney . . . It was another one of those things that was part of the atmosphere of the place. Fred Freeman, Jr., a former student at the Woodstock Job Corps center in Maryland, made this statement: The second night I got my ``blanket party.'' This was standard treatment for new guys. A blanket party for those not familiar with the term is when you are sleeping in your bunk, somebody suddenly throws a blanket over you, and eight to ten guys take turns punching and kicking you. I told the residential advisor after it happened. He said he would report it, but nothing ever happened. Two weeks later, Freeman said: Someone turned out the lights in the room and I was kicked and punched by him and his buddies. About 20 guys jumped me, and I got kicked from head to toe. After they left, my roommate took me down to the duty officer and they took me to Baltimore County Hospital. I had two cracked ribs and my right temple was swollen up like a balloon . . . No one got disciplined for the incident. Shortly thereafter, the Knoxville Job Corps center was ordered closed by the Department of Labor. The McKinney Job Corps center was also closed, thanks in no small part to the compelling testimony of the young witnesses before the Committee. Following the hearings, the Department of Labor agreed to take action to strictly enforce a One-strike-and-your-out policy on violence and drug use. Job Corps also identified, in conjunction with the inspector general, more than 25 Job Corps centers considered to be problem centers due to violence and consistent low performance. While the new policy has helped, I am sorry to say the violence continues. About 6 weeks ago, a 20-year-old Job Corps student in Oklahoma was murdered by two of his classmates. Last June, the General Accounting Office released the results of a study I requested they conduct of Job Corps. These results only reinforced the inspector general's earlier conclusions. Mr. President, I think the title of the report speaks for itself: ``High Costs and Mixed Results Raise Questions About Program's Effectiveness.'' The GAO reviewed outcomes for nearly 2,500 students terminees from six Job Corps centers. This is some of what they found: Nearly 70 percent of the students dropped out before completing vocational training. Of the 30-percent who graduated with a job skill, nearly two-thirds found no work or found a low-paying, no skill job. The percentage of students obtaining jobs that matched their training was only 13 percent. This corroborates the IG's earlier findings. GAO also found that half of the graduates who do get jobs only lasted two months or less at first job. Mr. President, I know that Job Corps is circulating information to show that their performance has recently improved. My colleagues should be aware that none of the recent figures have been independently audited, and if their past records are any indication, Job Corps numbers are unreliable at best, intentionally misleading at worst. The GAO also found that national training contractors who get paid substantial sums for finding students jobs, accounted for only 3 percent of all job placements. They also questioned the current Job Corps policy of awarding nine major national training contracts--at a cost of $41 million annually--without competitive bidding. The report also noted that 84 percent of Job Corps vocational training is in construction, a field in which the number of job openings have steadily declined. Mr. President, why are we spending tens of million of dollars for training for jobs that don't exist? It is little wonder Job Corps' placement rate is so low. We do a great disservice to our youth if we give them the expectation of a job where none really exists. The inspector general continues to question the improper use of millions of dollars spent by Job Corps contractors, including some of those awarded contracts on a sole source basis. Some of the costs these contractors claimed were identified by the IG to include: liquor and dry cleaning bills for more than $100,000; travel to China and South America by the president of one group; The son of the contractor's college tuition; $500,000 for an office in Tokyo; $300 a night rooms in resort hotels; and excessive salary increases and bonuses for company executives. More recently, the inspector general found that Job Corps was forced to write off nearly $1.76 million owed by terminated students during program years 1992 to 1994. The write-offs were partly the result of job placement bonus payments to students which later proved to be nonexistent. Mr. President, I could go on and on with more facts and figures. But I think the case for reform is clear. Even more compelling than the facts and figures are the complaints I have received from students and staff across the program, as recently as this past weekend. Let me conclude with an excerpt of a letter I received from a Job Corps recruiter, dated August 1 of this year. He writes: I could not morally, ethnically or consciously send my friend's children and community members of Northeastern Wisconsin to these (Job Corps) centers and expect them not to be harmed physically and emotionally. . . . . . . All in all, the program is very dysfunctional and mismanaged at all levels of operation. It needs to be reorganized. The best way of doing this is to block grant it to the states. Let the states have responsibility for assisting young adults into the program--the states have a stronger commitment in helping become productive and well- [[Page S 14971]] rounded individuals. This is not happening under such a mismanaged oversized federal bureaucracy . . . Mr. President, the amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania will only perpetuate a national program that has clearly gone awry. I urge my colleagues to support true reform of the Job Corps Program, and reject the Specter amendment.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on my side?

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. I yield myself 10 minutes on the bill.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I would like to answer some of the questions that have come up during the course of this debate, but first I would like to thank the Senator from Ohio for an excellent statement on exactly why the language that is in the bill answers the concerns that we have for the population being served by Job Corps centers. This is one of the reasons I must oppose the amendment offered by Senator Specter and Senator Simon. What is of concern to us is the at-risk youth population. The Job Corps is not on the chopping block. The same amount of funding will go for Job Corps centers. The Denison center in Iowa is an excellent Job Corps center, and there is not any reason to believe that operation will necessarily change, except it will be under the responsibility of the State instead of the Federal Government. This means the State can contract with a private contractor to continue running the center or any center that is being run by a private contractor. That does not change for those centers. As to the question about whether a Governor will be responsive, any Governor worth his salt is going to care about the population of his or her State. Certainly, the most vulnerable population is the one that we are trying to reach with improving and building on what was started with the Job Corps Program. The Job Corps was an excellent idea and is an excellent purpose still. But, Mr. President, I hear over and over again that this is a very difficult group of young people to train and we should not expect a high success rate. I could not disagree with this view more. I think we do a disservice to the very young people that we are wanting to reach, and we are sending them a message that somehow they are at risk and this is the best they can do. When we fail to challenge at-risk youth we peg them by saying that the best they can do are menial jobs. Many times that is where they ultimately end up after [[Page S 14972]] spending time in the Job Corps Program, and we will never help them to move toward a better future. I will be glad to yield in just a moment.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. I yield briefly to the Senator from Ohio.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. How much time remains on my side?

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I appreciate the observation made by the Senator from Ohio. He is exactly correct. In the section of the bill that is ``At Risk Youth'' there is an authorization for $2.1 billion, of that, $1.1 billion is for Job Corps. If there are any savings to be found in Job Corps with the elimination of extra administration layers that money stays with the at-risk program in this section. I cannot stress enough that those centers being well run will continue to be well run. I appreciate the Senator from Pennsylvania saying that the intensive training and intensive care are things that we would all want to accomplish with these initiatives. I believe strongly that it can be better done by the State than by the Federal Government at this point in time. I hope that my colleagues would oppose the Specter-Simon amendment. I yield the floor and yield my time back.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the pending amendment offered by Senator Specter; that the Senate resume consideration of the Ashcroft amendment numbered 2893; that there be 20 minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form on that amendment, to be followed by 4 minutes equally divided for debate on the Specter amendment, to be followed by a vote on or in relation to the Specter amendment; further, that following that debate there be an additional 4 minutes debate on the Ashcroft amendment numbered 2893, to be followed by a vote on or in relation to the Ashcroft amendment.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I want to say in closing that I think we have had a good debate on the pros and cons of the needs of the Job Corps Program and at-risk youth. I suggest that this debate is about whether the Federal Government should continue in the same way as it has in running the Job Corps programs, or whether the States can do a better job. Can the local community be more involved and bring about a greater sense of accountability and responsibility for helping this very vulnerable population, which with the right set of guidelines and expectations can achieve more than it has done. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Specter-Simon amendment, and to be willing to invest in trying to achieve even greater success with the Job Corps Program. I yield back any time that I have remaining, Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the Specter-Simon amendment.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Gramm of Texas, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. This amendment pertains to provisions of S. 143 dealing with reductions in the Federal work force, as we consolidated offices at the Federal level to oversee the new work [[Page S 14980]] force development system. This language was worked out with the Senator from Texas, and I believe it is acceptable on both sides.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mrs. KASSEBAUM

Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.