Gov. Rick Scott on Wednesday placed Workforce Central Florida (WCF) on probation for two weeks, giving the board time to make changes or face being abolished. Several of the state’s local Workforce boards have come under fire for questionable spending and for awarding contracts to members of the boards.
“Ongoing fiscal and compliance deficiencies have caused continuing concern about WCF’s internal controls and its management’s ability to ensure compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and grant requirements,” Scott wrote in a letter to Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs.
Scott said that since 2006 nearly $5.3 million in spending had been found to be not in compliance with federal law.
“My administration has zero tolerance for the misuse of taxpayer dollars,” Scott’s letter said, adding that counties served by the board were liable for reimbursement of federal workforce dollars that were misspent.
“It is regrettable this decisive action must be taken. But the money allocated to the workforce boards is meant to help people get jobs, and we have substantial evidence that’s not happening,” Scott said in a statement released Wednesday.
“While I have limited authority over workforce boards, I am going to use the authority I do have, with the cooperation of local leaders, to make sure taxpayer dollars are being used for their intended purpose—to help people get back to work.”
Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs, reacting to Scott’s letter said, she is in complete agreement with the Governor.
“Although I am not the chairman of the Workforce Central Florida Consortium, I completely agree with the Governor that we need to get to the bottom of that agency’s activities,” Jacobs said in a statement.
She added, “Like the Governor, I am outraged by the lack of transparency and fiscal oversight of that organization and believe the citizens of Florida deserve better. I am calling upon the chairman of the consortium to convene a special meeting so we can discuss how to best move forward to implement the Governor’s directed course of action.”
This corruption has been going on for years. Amazing no one saw it before now, I detected something fishy was going on after spending nearly 3 years seeking assistance from this agency. Something just didn’t “feel’ right about the way they were conducting business out of this office. Their action were suspicious to me. At some point I decided to contact the executive office and request public records on how they spend their funds-I never got a response!
Spoke with CFO, Alice Cobb several times who became very belligerent and flippant with me, after requesting proof of jobs they have provided to clients and I also asked her for the reports that shows the stats on how Public Funds of this agency is spent. Never got this information.