L.A. Fails in Job Training Effort, Mayor’s Panel Says : Poverty: Most of the graduates get only low-paying work with little hope of advancement, report finds.

Mired in bureaucracy and political infighting, the biggest federally funded poverty program in the city of Los Angeles largely has failed in its mission to train disadvantaged youths and adults for meaningful jobs, a blue-ribbon commission appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley has found.

The panel’s 103-page report, obtained by The Times this week and scheduled for public release next month, concludes that the “vast majority” of participants in the employment training program graduate only to low-skilled jobs that offer limited opportunities for advancement.

It suggests allowing private industry to shepherd the expansive array of training services financed under the federal Job Training Partnership Act.

The city has received $287 million since 1983 under the jobs act, the goal of which is to provide jobs for the unemployed and a chance for the working poor to qualify for skilled occupations.

But in Los Angeles, the report states, the “current system lacks a true vision of what job training services . . . should be.” It says that the job training program is so complex that many private employers with good jobs to offer do not participate in the system. And the decision-making process is so cumbersome and political that it takes too long to award contracts to job training agencies.

The report notes that the administrators of the program--city officials, private industry representatives and job training contractors--distrust each other and constantly fight over policy and procedure. This has contributed to “a breakdown in the system.”

“Little progress can be expected,” the report concludes, “until this distrust lessens and the decision-making becomes less vulnerable to unwarranted political intervention.”

The report found that, while the program offers training in 600 job classifications, 40% of the participants last year were placed in only 10 occupations and 20% were given low-paying work as general clerks, office helpers and security guards.

In the fiscal year ending last June, the program found jobs for 5,437 people who had little or no previous work experience and lacked basic employment skills. Although the program surpasses federal performance standards, the panel members “are convinced that a larger proportion of JTPA participants can be trained for higher quality jobs and can succeed in obtaining and holding these better positions.”

It further found that attempts to penalize poor job training agencies and reward quality contractors meet “political” resistance in the decision-making process and often fail.

“The panel believes that the City Council and the mayor’s office would likely be pleased not to have to play the appeals role it ended up playing in determining recent (job training) decisions.”

Under the program, the unemployed and the working poor are referred to community organizations that provide classroom and on-the-job training in fields ranging from computer programming to security guard training.

After successfully completing the program, the trainees are placed in jobs with employers who have agreed to participate in exchange for a partial subsidy of the trainee’s wages. The program is intended to give the disadvantaged, particularly young people, a chance to acquire skills and work experience so they can become self-supporting.

Last May, Bradley asked John P. Singleton, chief operating officer of Security Pacific Corp., to lead a 17-member panel in response to widespread complaints about the job training program.

The report was written by Alan Weisberg, a consultant hired by the commission. It is based on months of study and interviews with administrators and participants involved with the array of city projects financed through the federal jobs act.

The commission’s findings will be forwarded to Bradley, the City Council and a coalition of private businesses, who share authority for spending the federal money.

As an example of bureaucratic bungling, the report describes how city officials failed to spend $13 million in job training funds between 1983 and 1987.

“Given the tremendous need for services in Los Angeles, there is no way to justify such a large carry-over in funds,” Werner Schink, chief of the job training division for the state Employment Development Department, was quoted in the report as telling the panel.

As part of its conclusions, the commission recommends shifting control of the program back to the Private Industry Council, a controversial group of business and community leaders that oversees job training programs in each community in partnership with local government.

Thomas McKernan Jr., PIC chairman and a member of the panel, said Tuesday that the report was not without optimism, noting that it has found the Los Angeles job training program is “in pretty good shape” based on federal criteria.

Bradley, in a prepared statement, said he requested the independent review as part of his goal to “guarantee (that) our city programs assist our youth who often lack the skills to compete in our work force.” The mayor said he hopes that, in the wake of the study, private companies will be “willing to step forward, with jobs and money, to support our job-training efforts.”

The blue-ribbon group, called the Mayor’s Los Angeles Job Training Assessment Panel, approved a draft of the final report with minor changes on Monday and is expected to submit the study to City Hall within a week, Weisberg said. The Times obtained a copy of the final draft report, titled “Time for a True Partnership.”

The administrator in charge of the job training program, Parker Anderson, said the city has a clear plan with five major goals that are similar to those suggested by the panel, including finding higher quality jobs. Anderson said that the unemployed in Los Angeles are among the least educated, most difficult to train in the nation.

Weisberg called the report an “indictment” of the entire federal job training program.

“I don’t think Los Angeles is a lot more guilty than most cities,” Weisberg said. “A few cities seem to be doing a better job.”

The panel’s most controversial recommendation seems certain to be its call to transfer the administration of the program from the city’s Community Development Department to a newly appointed Private Industry Council.

“The panel knows full well that its recommendation to ‘privatize’ the administrative function will be a bitter pill to swallow for many,” the report said.

The PIC had jointly managed the program until 1988, when Bradley dismantled the private council by stripping the agency of its $1.1-million budget. The actions came after PIC Executive Director Dominic Ramos resigned from his $76,572-a-year post after reports that he mishandled a $160,000 contract, used federal funds to purchase a new 1986 Lincoln Continental and lied on his resume.

By returning the city’s job training program to private industry, Bradley said, the number of education programs and jobs available could dramatically increase. The mayor said he intends to have the city administrative officer review the recommendation and outline the impact on the city.

The recommendation--one of four alternatives in the report--is likely to meet stiff opposition, Councilman Robert Farrell said in an interview Tuesday.

“We’ve just gone through some extensive negotiation and reorganization to bring our system more in line with what people in this community would like to have it,” said Farrell, who is chairman of the council’s Community and Economic Development Committee, which oversees poverty programs.

“I think to go back to another system that we found to be wanting for a variety of reasons is not a way that we might want to go.”