Job Training Partnership Act

With funding of about $1.8 billion a year and about one million participants, Title IIA Job Training Partnership Act programs are the main federal job training effort. This report examines the support services participants received to enable them to attend training. While local service delivery areas reported spending about nine percent of their funds on participant support, this figure is somewhat misleading and sometimes inaccurate. These funds were often spent on work experience that is more of a training activity than a service to help participants attend training. In addition, many local service delivery areas appeared to have improperly charged administrative costs to the participant support cost category. Participants who received one form of support--child care--seemed to fare better than those who had to do without it, more often completing training and finding jobs. Coordination with other programs, such as the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills program, can increase money for participant support. Overall, about half of the local service delivery areas said that they had obtained participant support services by cooperating with other agencies.

GAO found that: (1) of the $1.8 billion in JTPA funding, about 9 percent is spent on participant support; (2) local service delivery areas (SDA) totalled 27 percent, or $10 million, in improper participant support charges; (3) 69 percent of single parents who obtained child care assistance had positive outcomes by returning to either school or work; and (4) coordination with other organizations and programs increases resources available for participant support.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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