Fed grant for poor LV youths not used

Jennifer Knight

Monday, April 8, 2002 | 11:13 a.m.

A $1.5 million federal grant designed to help disadvantaged Las Vegas youths has been revoked after the university-run program that received the money failed to do anything with it, according to the grant's stewards.

The Southern Nevada Workforce Investment Board, which administers the grant, rescinded the money last month.

The grant's recipient, the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, which is part of the University of Nevada, Reno, filed an appeal with the board to try to have the grant reinstated. The appeal is pending.

The Las Vegas-based program was supposed to serve 450 disadvantaged youths, ages 14-21, by teaching them leadership skills and training them to enter the job market.

Instead, six months into a yearlong contract that was awarded in August 2001, nothing had been done to help that group, said Richard Blue, board manager of the Southern Nevada Workforce Investment Board, the Nevada arm of the U.S. Department of Labor.

"The whole idea is to get (youths) prepared for the labor market," Blue said. "The problem is, (the program) didn't do anything."

University representatives said the program did teach job interviewing techniques, life skills communication and conflict resolution to 40 young people and was scheduled to work with 200 more.

"We had to notify them that we can't do work (for) them any longer," said Patrick Day, a local specialist for the cooperative extension. About $80,000 was spent to provide the services, Day said.

The money was to come from the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, a federal program that allocates funds to states to train people to succeed in the job market. The Southern Nevada Workforce Investment Board, based in Las Vegas, serves as the steward over the federal money that comes to the state, allocating it to organizations that can use it.

Those working for UNR's cooperative extension say it was difficult to put the money to use because of the slow-moving "bureaucracy" of the university system, which must sign off on all budgetary items.

"It's a small staff under a huge university, and things just don't happen that fast," said Patrick Day, a local specialist for the cooperative extension.

Blue says he never saw evidence of services being provided. The cooperative extension has yet to ask for reimbursement of $80,000 that Day claims was spent, Blue said.

"Maybe there was money spent, but we haven't seen any invoices," Blue said. "We don't know anything about 200 youths."

The workforce investment board is now considering other proposals for use of the money, as university officials await an answer on their appeal. The determination is due by this week.

"We tried to do everything we could to get things off the ground, but in the eyes of the board, it was too little too late," Day said.