District Council 37 called on the Human Resources Administration (HRA) to expand its Job Training Participant model, a temporary employment program for those on welfare to help them back into the workforce. Those accepted into the "JTP" program work four days a week at either the Parks Department, the Sanitation Department, or within HRA itself. One day a week is allotted to training, career, or educational advancement. JTPs are hired by the city as temporary staff and, going into effect this March, are paid a union negotiated salary of $9.22 per hour for all five days.
In tandem with the release of a new report condemning $9 billion in contracting for personnel and professional services (out of the city's total procurement expenditure of $16.5 billion), DC37 leaders told City Council last month that the city could save much of that contract budget by reassigning a wide variety of tasks across agencies to city residents enrolled in a much larger JTP program. DC37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said she hopes the report will "spur public officials and the media to shine light on the 'shadow government,' work with us to identify and cut the waste, and save the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars."
City Council General Welfare Committee Chairman Bill de Blasio, who chaired a hearing on these issues Feb. 25, signaled his interest in DC37's recipe for workforce and budget betterment by issuing follow-up questions to HRA Commissioner Robert Doar. De Blasio asked Doar – who seemed generally open to the possibility of expanding JTP at the hearing – how the progress of JTP was being measured, how federal stimulus funding might be used to expand it, and how HRA could take the lead in broadening the initiative.
Doar testified at the hearing that there were financial considerations in expanding JTP programs and that other city agencies did not make JTP expansion a priority, drawing a laugh when he noted “in a bureaucracy, there is a tendency to resist change.” However, the commissioner agreed to de Blasio’s suggestion of further discussion about whether HRA might advocate this program at a citywide level.
Some participants in JTP testified in favor of the program. Gladys Perez, 52 and a resident of the Bronx, completed the Parks Opportunity Program and supports her family through a job at the Parks Department. Perez said at the hearing that the program provided her with “the opportunity to be independent and self-sufficient.”
But others, like Jacqueline Estrada, 31 and also a resident of the Bronx, who worked as a JTP for the Sanitation Department said that after her six months in the program, a permanent job eluded her. She had “no employment opportunities in sight” had to reapply for public assistance.
According to HRA, 40 percent of Parks Opportunity Program participants are placed in permanent jobs; Doar noted the rate depends on workers' completion of the program and motivation along with other factors.
