Officials with the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations say services for job seekers and employers could again be reduced dramatically if Enhancement legislation which partially funds the state’s career centers (Alabama Employment Service), including the one in Cullman, doesn’t pass the Legislature before March 31.

State Rep. Neal Morrison, D-Cullman, said Thursday if the powers that be in Montgomery spent less time talking out of both sides of their mouth and more time supporting an increase in weekly unemployment compensation as they claim they do, “this situation would have been resolved weeks ago.”

“I support the Enhancement legislation and I will vote to renew it and keep our career centers open, but at the present time the chairman of the House Business and Commerce Committee is not allowing the bill to come up for discussion until labor’s request for a $10 a week increase in unemployment compensation is addressed,” Morrison said.

“If DIR is concerned about keeping these centers open they can resolve this by Wednesday morning. All they have to do is come over here and tell the Business and Commerce Committee that we need to be fair to the people who have lost their jobs and give them an additional $10 a week. If they were to do that, those bills would fly through so fast it would make your head spin,” Morrison said. “The governor says he supports increasing the weekly unemployment benefit in Alabama, which by the way is the lowest in the country. DIR officials say they are not opposed to the increase, yet they aren’t here pushing for it. In other words, they say one thing and then they won’t follow up on it. This could have been resolved in January if folks would have been less concerned with playing politics and more concerned about doing what is right for the working men and women of this state.”

Alabama has a labor force of more than two million and last year the Employment Service staff in Career Centers assisted one in every five workers seeking a job.

The current legislation enhances federal funding by taking .06 percent of the state unemployment tax paid by employers, and using it to fund personnel who are primarily focused on getting unemployed workers back in the workforce, thereby shortening their time drawing benefits. It does not cost employers any additional tax cost.

“Everybody wins,” said Phyllis Kennedy, DIR director. “It’s good for the unemployed worker, good for the employer’s tax rate and good for the Alabama economy.”

“Failure to pass the Enhancement Bill will have a devastating effect on our Career Center System,” says Dr. Tim Alford, director of the Office of Workforce Development. “Inaction will affect all our programs because they share costs for facilities with the Employment Service. If they pull out, it jeopardizes our workforce partners’ ability to continue. I hope a compromise will be reached and the Enhancement Bill will pass.”

Bruce Payne, director of the local Employment Service, shares Alford’s hope that the legislation will pass.

“My concern is that if it does not and we lose our employment service here, we’ll experience what happened when 20 career centers closed last year. In those areas it presented a hardship on employers and citizens and we certainly don’t want that to happen here,” Payne said. “Also, it has been my experience that whenever a federal program like this is lost it is almost impossible to go back and re-establish it again.”

The legislation has been in effect since 1989 and was set up to be renewed every two years. It has been extended five times.

Because of further decreased federal funding, if the legislation doesn’t pass the state Legislature, DIR will be faced with closing the majority of local offices across the state. Currently there are 32 career centers in the state, and with no enhancement money the state may need to reduce that number to about 10.

The closings would be necessary, Kennedy says, because about 120 employee positions in career centers are funded through enhancement.

“I certainly don’t have a crystal ball and I can’t see the future, but it is my belief that if DIR closes 22 career centers ours would be one of those to close simply because they’ve already stated that the 10 centers that would remain open would be in the larger metropolitan areas,” Payne said.

Asked if the local career center could remain open if the Alabama Employment Service closes, Payne said it would be very difficult.

“If we are forced to close it would affect between 18 and 20 people in this office, with some of those being part-time positions,” Payne said. “That’s the thing a lot of people don’t realize. The career center is more than just the employment service. We also offer vocation rehabilitation, adult basic education, Career Link through the North Alabama Skills Center. All of these agencies provide services beyond the scope and range of helping folks find jobs.”

In addition to job review and job placement, the Alabama Career Center in Cullman participates in the Public Labor Exchange, assists employers in the recruitment of employees, operates the Trade Readjustment Assistance Program, provides in-house resume preparation, referrals, provides labor market information to employers, provides interviewing space, individual job development and skills upgrading and assessment.

“Currently we have 202 orders from Cullman employers seeking separate job listings. These are employers who are looking for any number of workers from one to 40,” Payne said. “During any given month I’d estimate that we assist between 1,500 and 2,000 people, and that’s including all agencies.”

Carl English, director of human resources for Topre America in Cullman, knows all too well how valuable the career center can be to area employers.

“We use the career center really as an extension of our office because they are capable of doing so much of the leg work for us, such as tracking applicants and screening applications for what we ask for. There is no way we could do that here at our facility,” English said. “In the past three years we’ve probably processed 6,000 applications. Handling that volume of people would require us to put on additional people. The career center is an invaluable resource for local employers, and why the state would even consider closing these offices is, in my opinion, counterproductive to what this state should be doing.”

English said it behooves the state to do everything it can to find jobs for the unemployed at a time when Baby Boomers are leaving the workforce.

“How this state could even consider closing 20 offices last year is beyond me,” English said. “In my opinion, the Alabama Career Centers are one of this state’s brightest success story.”

Kennedy recently wrote in a memo to employers statewide that it is unfortunate that organized labor has once again chose to hold the bill hostage to leverage an increase in maximum weekly unemployment insurance benefits.

Labor, she says, is requesting a $10 increase this year and $5 next year. Currently the state pays a weekly benefit of $220 to those drawing unemployment compensation.

“We believe that both issues need to be considered on their own merit, and should not be dependent on each other,” Kennedy wrote.

Morrison said that the bill is not being held hostage.

“The problem you have is DIR keeps telling everybody they are in favor of giving more money each week to people who are unemployed, but the reality is if they were in favor of it we wouldn’t be sitting here faced with this situation,” Morrison said. “They’re only asking for a few dollars more a week and it would not affect anybody or raise anyone’s taxes. The governor says he’s in favor of it and the DIR director says she’s in favor of it, yet neither one is over here pushing for it.”

Morrison said he has spoken with a number of business owners in Cullman who tell him they are in favor of the increase because it won’t affect their bottom line.

“What the unemployed in this state draw now can’t buy groceries or pay bills,” Morrison said. “These people are out there working and paying into this, yet when they lose their jobs they can’t make ends meet because we have the lowest compensation in the country and that’s not right.”