florida interior design license ordeal

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Miami Mirror – True Reflections

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SOUTH FLORIDA WORKFORCE

INTERVIEW WITH AN ARTIST NAMED ELIZABETHA Miami Dade College Student and South Florida Workforce Client was sold aBill of Goods that did not pan out

December 4, 2010

David Arthur WaltersInterviewer for the Miami Mirror

Miami Beach, Florida

Prologue:

The Miami Mirror is currently investigating the possibility that the South Florida WorkforceInvestment Board, the members of which are appointed by Miami Dade County Mayor CarlosAlvarez, and its partner Miami Dade College, which does have or has had representatives sit onthat board along with representatives of other schools, has cooperated and continues to cooperatein selling grant-funded courses that Workforce clients do not really need for their training orretraining, and in using other means to maximize grant funding by manipulating requirements forcompletion. The subject was brought to our attention by “Elizabeth,” who wishes to remain

anonymous at this time for personal reasons. When she asked for the degree she was entitled to,or that the grant money be refunded to the grantors, South Florida Workforce ignored her requestand tried to count her as one of its success stories because she had gotten a job – as a matter offact, she had gotten that job on her own.

MIAMI MIRROR: Did South Florida Workforce sell you the Miami Dade College program?

ELIZABETH: Yes, they did. I had not even thought of going back to school. I was at the MiamiBeach One-Stop center one day looking for work when the caseworker tapped me on myshoulder and asked me why I did not go back to college. When I said I could not afford it, shetold me it would be free because there were grants.

MIAMI MIRROR: Pell Grants?

ELIZABETH: No. I had to apply for a Pell Grant in order to be disqualified to get the grantWorkforce got me.

MIAMI MIRROR: What kind of grant was that?




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MIAMI MIRROR: I think there is some truth in it. I would like them to show me otherwise. Youknow I have complained about Jorge Gonzales, Miami Beach’s city manager, but at least he doesa lot of things to complain about for his two-hundred grand plus pension, and some of the thingsare good. According to the Miami Herald, Beasley has barely lifted a finger down here.

ELIZABETH: Still to say that about Mr. Beasley is much too harsh. I do not like it. It isinappropriate. You should be a more objective reporter.

MIAMI MIRROR: I like the One-Stop idea. People can get everything they need at one place.But I was shocked when I walked into a center looking for work and saw a big sign askingclients if they were about to be homeless, and another sign about food stamps.

ELIZABETH: You should not have had that attitude. Food stamps are necessary for many people, and homeless people can get help, some money, and shelter.

MIAMI MIRROR: I mean to say that my vision of myself in the future was with a good job andnot homelessness and food stamps – I did not want that picture in my face.

ELIZABETH: May I tell you that people who desperately need help cannot get everything theyneed at the One-Stop centers? They have to go to several different places. I know that from mywork in the victim business.

MIAMI MIRROR: I know. I went into a One-Stop undercover and spoke with a caseworkerabout a chef who had fallen on hard times: he was wandering the street with his resume, sleepingin alleys, asking for food and jobs. The caseworker simply told me that once someone is on thestreet, it was too late to get them a job. He gave a photocopy of a list of places people can gethelp. It was so blurred from repeated copying that I could barely read it. I looked into some ofthe programs on the list and found out that they either did not exist or the addresses had changed.

But the people on the ground at Workforce have good intentions. I think they really want to help people. But the people they have to work with, many of them ill-suited for employment, is thereason the real success numbers, not the ones they fudge, are not so great.

ELIZABETH: They did nothing for me but marvel at my qualifications and how they could notget me a job. So they signed me up for the grant money. They want to make me a successnumber, that’s all they can think about, the numbers; I understand, as I was a fund raiser myself.But I am not going for it. They did not get me my job; I see what they were up to now.

MIAMI MIRROR: I don’t think many of the Workforce employment counselors themselvescould get and keep a job in private industry, say, with Robert Half International, although I theyare usually very nice people. Besides, employers have reasons for not going to Workforce exceptfor low-paid, often temporary workers. Workforce has to work with what they have to workwith. Anyway, why did you go along with their education program?

ELIZABETH: Because I trusted them. I wanted to get a license, so I was willing to go throughwhatever motions were necessary to get it.

MIAMI MIRROR: Did you have to make some sort of commitment to get into the program?




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ELIZABETH: You bet I did. They made me sign a commitment that I would complete the program.

MIAMI MIRROR: But how can you complete a never-ending program?

ELIZABETH: Like I said, I trusted them, and went along thinking that it would have aconclusion.

MIAMI MIRROR: I still don’t understand this open-ended thing. You promise to complete a program where the conditions of completion are uncertain. You are strung along ad infinitum.Usually the terms, the number of credits and courses required for a degree are fixed, and if acollege failed to honor its side of the agreement, the student could sue.

ELIZABETH: Not so much anymore. Miami Dade College and others fiddle around withinternational students, knowing their visa requirements, manipulating them accordingly. Mydaughter said Georgetown was stringing her along, coming up with new requirements, and so on,and that’s what even the best universities resort to.

MIAMI MIRROR: Seems like exchange credits are quite the game to play. Rick Beasley andOlivia Almagro told me that is normal; that is what colleges do, and that your situation with theircollege partner is between you and the college. Did your student advisor lead you on at thecollege?

ELIZABETH: I only met with the student advisor a couple of times – once to complain about awoman being harassed in front of the class by a gay teacher over her periods, and then I had togo higher up to resolve that issue. I often met with the head of the architecture department.

MIAMI MIRROR: What is his name? Did he mislead you?

ELIZABETH: Juan. He is a dear man. He was the angel who was always looking over myshoulder and helping me. He would meet with me after each semester, and go over what I wouldhave to do next. Sometimes I did not understand why I would have to take certain courses, but hewas such a gentleman, kind and persuasive. I have kept an email from him that was so sensitiveand profound it brought me to tears.

MIAMI MIRROR: Did he mislead you?

ELIZABETH: What happened is not his fault. I could see that he was disappointed with havingto give me some of the assignments, but there was nothing he could do; it was out of his hands.

MIAMI MIRROR: Did he say you would graduate?

ELIZABETH: Definitely. That is why I doubled up and accelerated at the end, to graduate, thatwas our final plan.

MIAMI MIRROR: How did you feel when he told you that your exchange credits were nolonger acceptable because of a policy change?




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ELIZABETH: Betrayed by a friend. Hurt. But I could see in his eyes that it was not coming fromhim, and he did not like what he was doing.

MIAMI MIRROR: You mean you saw guilt in his face?

ELIZABETH: I think so. He was following orders he did not like, at least that is the impression Igot.

MIAMI MIRROR: Did he tell you that your certificate would be good for interior designlicensure, and what the experience requirements are?

ELIZABETH: Yes, and I was surprised to hear that the information he gave me was inaccurate.

MIAMI MIRROR: My take on it is that he naturally confused the requirements for architectswith that of interior designers, and has not read the complex details of the statute lately. The ladyat the Board of Architecture and Interior Design said there is a lot of misinformation circulatingin the student body about the law. People simply do not study it. I recommended that it be part of

the required curriculum. Some students call the Board beforehand to see if Miami Dade Collegeinterior design curricula is approved, and they are told it does not, but they can gamble on their particular credits being approved by Board during the review process.

ELIZABETH: I just took his word for it, and thought Workforce must have looked into it.

MIAMI MIRROR: The experts certainly should have. It would be negligent not to. Are youangry at Miami Dade College?

ELIZABETH: Yes, but can I tell you that I loved my experience there? It did not help me withinterior design, but it provided a structure for me during a terrifying time, a time ofunemployment, of not belonging, of not being wanted by employers. I don’t like what happenedto me in the end, but I shall always love Miami Dade College.

MIAMI MIRROR: What about the nonsense courses, the academic courses, many of which hadnothing to do with interior design.

ELIZABETH: Frankly, I loved those courses, even the confusing philosophy course. I hadenough mathematics for interior design, but the math classes at Miami Dade College reallyhelped me to focus my mind, to concentrate on things. I would go to college the rest of my life ifI could. I even thought about applying for a job at the college, but they were laying people offwith the recession.

MIAMI MIRROR: What about that course in design taught by a teacher so badly that almosteveryone failed? I think you said you got a C.

ELIZABETH: I did not! I never received a grade less than an A! I was an honor student! Thecollege knew what happened with that teacher and took care of it. She asked me to teach thecourse for her.




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MIAMI MIRROR: It seems to me that interior design is really just a trade, and was brought intocolleges as part of the movement to render the population more and more dependent on higher oracademic education, expensive education for a decent livelihood. Hundreds of interior designersare practicing the trade throughout the state without a certificate or license, and one never hearsabout it because nobody complains; they don’t even know interior designers are supposed to

have certified education and a license. I hear only three states including Florida require licensure.Do you believe it is just a trade, that it could be learned in a trade school or on the job?

ELIZABETH: Yes and yes.

MIAMI MIRROR: I understand that architecture was considered as a trade during the gothic period, that its principles or laws of the trade were secret, and that the trade itself was towardsthe bottom of the totem pole, thought to be for the lower class of people, so to speak. Don’t youthink it is interesting that there is a Florida law for architects and interior designers entirelyseparate from the contractor law.

ELIZABETH: Well, I can say that interior designers are just peons compared to architects. Quite

frankly, I am thinking I might as well just forget about being a top Miami interior designer, overthis license thing. I am an excellent interior designer, but they will not let me call myself thatwithout a license, so maybe I will just move to a better state to practice my art.

MIAMI MIRROR: Interior design is an art?

ELIZABETH: I am an artist. That is what I am and have always been.




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THE CASE OF ELIZABETHThe Workforce Investment Act Regional Board Game, the CollegeTransfer Credit Game, and the Local Autonomy Game, Lessons inWasting Money and Passing the Buck

December 16, 2010

By David Arthur Walters

MIAMI MIRRORMiami Beach, Florida

Elizabeth was well off and well known in the highest social circles. She had lived the high life.She enjoyed her fine wardrobe, the world travel, the private plane, the residences all over theworld, especially the Waldorf apartment in Manhattan. She enjoyed keeping her households inorder, advancing charitable causes, entertaining wealthy and powerful people – she was one ofthem for awhile. But she did not enjoy the brutal beatings. She did not like being suddenly andwithout warning punched in the face for the hell of it, or being thrown down stairs and havingher back broken and spending months in the hospital. That is not something any woman in herright mind would like to suffer.

Her last husband turned out to be a fraudster despite his high rank. She tried to save hermarriage, spending a great deal of her personal savings on his rehabilitation. She finally got adivorce. The property settlement did her no good because law enforcement had seized almosteverything. She wound up in Miami with a restraining order, her wardrobe, her wedding ring,and a hard drive with enough evidence on it to help ruin her former husband, who was runningmore cons elsewhere, and to put him in prison for life.

The proceeds from the ring were barely enough to live on for a brief spell. She did not whimperand whine, become a professional victim. She rented a respectable little apartment, donned whatremained of her fine clothes, held her chin high and forged ahead on her lonesome. She got a

low-paying job raising funds for abused women and children. She was well suited for the job atthe time, but she was laid off with the economic downturn. She applied for unemployment. Awoman at the Workforce One-Stop sold her on the idea of getting a government-funded degreein interior design at Miami Dade College. She already had considerable experience in that field,and quite a few college credits to boot. She had been employed as an artist with a national firm;her job included illustrating the interiors of historic estates. A prenuptial agreement had precluded her from working a regular job for quite a while, which gave her the opportunity tofurther her art studies at the finest schools.




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She committed to finishing the program at Miami Dade College. Her Workforce and MiamiDade College advisors said the interior design curricula qualified graduates to sit for the exam atthe Board of Architecture and Design, a prerequisite for licensure in the field. She couldeventually go into the interior design business for herself in Florida. The college eventuallyagreed to accept her credits. Many of the classes she had to take were merely academic, had

nothing to do with interior design; she knew so much about the subject that she could havetaught the classes that appertained. Suffice it to say that she was an honor student, and wentalong with the program. She accelerated her studies to complete the interior design program inher final semester, and was told she would graduate upon passing the last exam. As Fate or Godwould have it, she got a job in interior design just before she took the exam, and she proceededto work long hours, seven days a week, due to demand from high-end clients. Her collegeadvisor, the head of the architecture department, said she would have to work for an interiordesigner for three years before she could get a license.

I became acquainted with Elizabeth in downtown Miami one day. I spoke with her often sincethen. She became one of my heroes even though she is an arch-conservative Republican; I was,at least before I met her, a bleeding-heart liberal and muckraker. There was much to disagreeabout – I dared not say a critical word about President Bush et al in her presence, and thatcertainly cramped my style. Still, I could not help admire her courage, determination and perseverance. Once she made up her mind to do something, that was it, come hell or high water,and she did it damned well, so forget about trying to dissuade her. I was very proud of her when Iheard that the time had come for her to graduate. I told her I wanted to write about her, to tell hersuccess story.

And then the bad news began. Miami Dade College had changed its policy retroactively, wouldnot accept Elizabeth’s transfer credits, so she would practically have to start all over again, takecourses she could teach even better than the Miami Dade College teachers.

She was not the only one. The scuttlebutt was that the college was playing the Transfer CreditGame, manipulating acceptance and denial of credits obtained elsewhere in order to increase itstuition revenue. For example, by making Elizabeth take the beginning courses, the college mightmilk the grantors for another $5,000. That is of course peanuts compared to the $27 million infederal stimulus funds Miami Dade College expects to receive by 2011, but every little bit addsup. Enrollment has gone up 15 percent at the college since 2007, and tuition dollars are growingto boot.

Miami Dade College is not the only community college that plays the Transfer Credit Game: TheWashington, D.C. Center for Progress’ October 2010 report by Rebecca Klein-Collins, AmySherman, and Louis Soares, entitled Degree Completion Beyond Institutional Borders -

Responding to the New Reality of Mobile and Nontraditional Learners, states that time and effortand money are being wasted annually due to transfer credit barriers at educational institutions.

“The average community college student earns 140 credits in the course of pursuing a bachelor’sdegree, even though typically only 120 credits are necessary. Those 20 extra credits representindividual time, effort, and money, but they also represent public investment in the form offederal Pell grants and state subsidies to public colleges. All of this adds up to billions of dollarsannually once all of the costs of wasted credit are factored in—student-paid tuition dollars, state




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subsidies to public institutions, student financial aid, and delayed tax revenue when students takelonger to access higher-paying jobs that require college degrees.”

The authors did not point out that colleges are deliberately playing the Transfer Credit Game toraise funds for their respective institutions, for that would offend the audience they were writingfor; instead, blame is laid on disarticulation i.e. the failure of institutions to agree on what creditsare mutually acceptable. The authors lamented that transfer credit policy are preventing collegesfrom meeting President Obama’s goal of more college degrees by 2020, but they fail to addressreality by pointing out that there will never be enough high-paying jobs for college graduates,and that the notion that higher education can solve the problem of low wages, underemploymentand unemployment is an American Dream or myth costing citizens trillions of dollars.

Elizabeth put on her stoic face when she broke the news to me: my success story was goingdown the drain because Miami Dade College was playing the Transfer Credit Game. I could feelher pain, but she was not about to show it to anyone. She was not about to lay herself down andwhine like an abused dog.

Surely, I thought, there must be some innocent mistake, so I called Rick Beasley, ExecutiveDirector of the South Florida Workforce Investment Board. The South Florida WorkforceInvestment Board is a creature of the South Florida Employment and Training Consortium Boardcreated by an Interlocal Agreement between Miami-Dade County and Monroe County for the purpose of acting on behalf of the elected officials whose representatives sit on the ConsortiumBoard. It receives grant money, assumes financial liability according to state and federal law, andis responsible for appointing the members of the South Florida Workforce Investment Board.The personal power at the center of the local structure is presently Miami Dade County MayorCarlos Alvarez, who is responsible for the appointment of the members of the boards. Local board duties include planning and oversight, budgeting, collecting data, promoting private sectorinvolvement in the statewide investment system, and negotiating agreement on performance

measures. The South Florida Workforce Investment Board may not directly provide services tothe public, but it selects One Stop operators that do as well as youth service providers. Forexample, in the South Beach area of Miami Beach, the One-Stop operator selected is UnidadMiami Beach, Inc., a non-profit corporation controlled by influential Cuban Americans anddoing its One-Stop business as Unidad MBHCC (Miami Beach Hispanic Community Center). Itwas this One-Stop business that sold Elizabeth the Miami Dade College courses

Rick Beasley promised to look into the matter. He noted that the Transfer Credit Game is par forthe course at many colleges, so he would have to take a look at the file. He had AssistantDirector Sergio Perez speak with Elizabeth. Mr. Perez insisted on trying to claim her as a successstory because she had gotten a job.

There was no way she would accept that falsehood, Elizabeth told him. South Florida Workforcehad done nothing to get her a job. She got the job through a friend because of her reputation forinterior design. The only way she could be claimed as a success story is if she were given thedegree she had been promised. Otherwise, she said, the grant money should be refunded to thegrantor. She wrote a 25 August letter to Mr. Perez and Mr. Beasley to that effect, copyingEduardo Padron, the president of Miami Dade College. She said she was shocked that not asingle person had yet responded to her two months hence.




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I repeatedly followed up with Mr. Beasley, to no avail. I was greeted with silence and prevarication, and concluded that the highly paid professional bureaucrat was evasive. He wasstonewalling me, probably thinking I would just go away like most people probably do. But Iwas not about to get lost. I happen to be a person whose friends sometimes plead “Please don’t”when I promise to look into something they mention. Something was wrong here, and I could

feel the pain. A lawyer told me years ago that when one feels injured by someone else’s conduct,most likely there is legal ground to take a stand against that person, although one may lose thecase.

“Qui tacet consentire videtur,” I quoted the now obsolete legal maxim to Mr. Beasley onOctober 13, 2010. “Given your silence on the issues presented to you several times, I shall now proceed with the belief that your silence confirms the allegations as being true.”

“Good Afternoon,” he replied. “Since raising the alleged training allegation regarding[Elizabeth], SFW staff and Career Center Provider staff have been in communication with her.Please be mindful that I'm not at liberty to discuss (Elizabeth’s] case due to the information being confidential. However, SFW staff and Career Center staff have and will continue to assist[Elizabeth]. Again, thank you for bringing the issue to my attention.”

Nonsense: Mr. Beasley was prevaricating. Professional bureaucrats prefer to ignore, evade, and procrastinate when there is no deadline pressure and no certain penalties for unresponsivenesswhen information conflicting with their biases is presented. He had done nothing to respond toElizabeth’s 25 August plea for her degree or a refund to the grantors. His staff had not assistedElizabeth in the matter, and it was evident they had no such intention. Evidently he figured fromlong experience that he could get away with doing nothing. Someone could always make aformal grievance to some obscure department if it could be found, but that would be to little orno avail either, for its purpose is to pave over hypocrisy with sophisticated casuistry.

As for the confidentiality of the information, the public records law provides for civil andcriminal penalties and attorney’s fees when public information is not provided on request; certaininformation is exempt. The Florida law governing the regional workforce boards states that the public disclosure law applies to them. I asked twice to see the file, and offered to provideElizabeth’s authorization if need be, to no avail. Mr. Beasley was not even going to tell me whathe knew, i.e. what funding programs were involved, who the grantors were – most recently, theinformation was offered provided that a fee of $50 be paid. Worrisomely, the file had apparently been misplaced when Elizabeth dropped by the One-Stop, where her complaint was ignored asthe case worker, following the party line, insisted she was a success story instead of representinga failure of South Florida Workforce to understand and oversee its educational partners’ training programs.

My subsequent investigation brought to light the fact that the Miami Dade College interiordesign curricula had not been approved by the Florida Board of Architecture and Interior Design,as represented by Workforce and Miami Dade College, therefore qualification for licensure wasnot even assured although the Board could take a look at the credits earned there just as it couldlook at the credits of out-of-state institutions. And I discovered that Elizabeth might not berequired to serve as a virtual apprentice to another interior designer, for a provision in the law




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allows licensure for those who have three years of education, without graduation, and three yearsof experience, provided it is approved of by Board review.

Florida is only one of three states that requires licensure of interior designers; whether or not the public has an genuine interest in licensing trade is debatable; the definition of “interior design” is

controversial; and that so-called interior designers are hypothetically practicing interior designwithout a license under other names, such as fashion designer, seating designer, collectioncoordinator, furniture placement designer, etc. Florida law states that an unlicensed interiordesigner can design and decorate the interiors of residences providing the interior designer doesnot call herself an interior designer! No kidding: “481.229 Exceptions; exemptions fromlicensure… (6)This part shall not apply to: (a) A person who performs interior design services orinterior decorator services for any residential application, provided that such person does notadvertise as, or represent himself or herself as, an interior designer.”

However, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, in Eva Locke et alv Joyce Short et al (Case No 4:09cv193-RH/WCS) sanely ruled otherwise on February 4, 2010:

the court held that the Florida statute requiring a person to obtain a license in order to providenonresidential “interior design” services—as that term is properly construed—is constitutional.But the statute barring a person who provides lawful residential interior-design services withouta license from advertising herself as an “interior designer” violates the First Amendment. Thecase involved unlicensed interior designers, who by law are allowed to practice residential butnot commercial interior design without a license, sued licensed interior designers in their officialcapacity as members of the Florida Board of Architecture and Interior Design, because they believed the law preventing them from representing themselves as interior designersunreasonably regulated free speech, for one thing, and also infringed on their rights to due process and equal protection of the laws, because the state requires a license to perform ordinarytasks that nobody could rationally believe should be subject to licensing, hence irrationaldistinctions were drawn by the legislature. Architects make sure walls do not fall down, whereasinterior designers make sure people do not run into or trip over things. The court noted that moststates had rejected the argument that the interior designer, distinguished from the architect, likethe physician’s assistant from the physician or nurse practitioner from the nurse, should belicensed to promote competence in the first place, but the Florida legislature certainly had a rightto require licensing in its own state, said the court.

I am here tempted to delve into the fascinating definition of interior design as “properlyconstrued,” but that Talmudic excursus must be belayed for now; suffice it to say that SouthFlorida Workforce and Miami Dade College negligently wasted the grant money as well asElizabeth’s time and effort: they either innocently, negligently, or fraudulently misrepresentedthe requirements for licensure as an interior designer in Florida. She was already anaccomplished interior designer, perhaps with enough academic credits and years of experience toqualify for licensure without further education, provided that the Board of Architecture andInterior Design approve of her credentials and she passed its exam. She could hold herself out inFlorida as an interior designer of residential interiors without a license; she could practiceinterior design without a license in 47 states. Most of the courses she was required to take byMiami Dade College had nothing or little to do with interior design. The grant money would




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have been put to better use as direct funding to her to set up her own business as a residentialinterior designer.

However that might be, I was perturbed by Rick Beasley’s evasiveness and deceptiveness, and by the fact that not a single soul at South Florida Workforce or Miami Dade College had

bothered to address the concerns Elizabeth had raised in her August 25 plea to them for herdegree or a refund to the grantors. I took her plea and my own complaint about the potentialwastage of millions of grant dollars at Miami Dade College and the irresponsible behavior of its partner, South Florida Workforce, upstairs, to Florida Governor Charlie Crist. The governor’soffice referred the matter to Workforce Florida Inc.

Workforce Florida Inc. is the non-profit corporation that monitors and oversees theadministration of statewide Workforce policy and all activities including designating local areas,reviewing local plans, and the programs and services implemented by the local boards. It is not agovernment entity, and is not in any manner subject to the control of the state agency named theAgency for Workforce Innovation. It is obliged by law to design and implement strategies thathelp Floridians enter, remain in, and advance in the workplace, to serve as the statewideWorkforce Investment Board pursuant to the federal Workforce Investment Act, and to providing oversight and policy direction to ensure that relevant Workforce programs are properlyadministered by the Agency for Workforce Innovation in compliance with approved plans andunder contract with Workforce Florida, Inc.

I received a response to my communication to Governor Crist, from Adriane Grant, Director ofExternal Affairs for Workforce Florida, Inc. She referred the matter back to the local level, withadvice that the state Agency for Workforce Innovation may be contacted if the local workforceinvestment board, namely South Florida Workforce Investment Board, is unresponsive – thatwas, in fact, the nub of my complaint to the governor!

“It appears the issues you raise on behalf of [Elizabeth] require local attention and resolutionwith Miami Dade College and South Florida Workforce, which oversees the delivery ofworkforce-system training in Miami Dade and Monroe counties. I have been informed by Mr.Rick Beasley, Executive Director of South Florida Workforce that local workforce staffmembers have tried to reach [Elizabeth] to further understand the issues she has raised and assisther, as appropriate. We strongly urge customer inquiries such as these be addressed at the levelnearest the customer. However, in cases in which that is not possible, we do have protocols forcustomer-service complaints that may require state intervention to resolve satisfactorily. This protocol includes contacting the Agency for Workforce Innovation, the state agency responsiblefor administrative and fiscal affairs of the workforce system, which [Elizabeth] may ultimatelychoose to do after exhausting all local opportunities for remedy.”

The truth of the matter is that Rick Beasley was stonewalling, and that his claim of reaching outto Elizabeth was deceptive, as neither he nor his staff nor the college had made any attemptwhatsoever to contact her in response to her August 25 plea for justice. A stone wall exhaustsanyone who cares to but his or her head up against it time and time again, wasting a great deal oftime and energy – no doubt the bureaucrats behind it are accustomed to people becomingexhausted and going away without further ado. The only opportunity a stone wall presents is in




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climbing over it, going upstairs, which is what was done in this case, for dealing with the SouthFlorida Workforce Investment Board was obviously futile.

The issue was also referred to the Florida’s Agency for Workforce Innovation, the state’s leadingworkforce agency. The Agency offered nothing except information. It describes itself as a“partner” of Workforce Florida, Inc. Its duties are set forth in Section 20.50 of the FloridaStatutes, and include ensuring that the state appropriately administers federal and state workforcefunding by administering plans and policies of Workforce Florida, Inc., under contract withWorkforce Florida, Inc. The Agency receives federal grants and funds and administers them asdirected by the Governor. It expends the funds according to law and as directed by WorkforceFlorida, Inc. The statute declares that “All program and fiscal instructions to regional workforce boards shall emanate from the agency pursuant to plans and policies of Workforce Florida, Inc.Workforce Florida, Inc. shall be responsible for all policy directions to the regional boards.” Ithas many other duties besides.

I was contacted by the Agency’s director of communications, Robby Cunningham. It was beyond the scope of his office to take decisive action to resolve the issues. His job function in thematter was naturally limited to public relations functions, to providing information. He could nottake decisive action to resolve the issue. He provided some useful information, which raised evenmore questions, and referred me back down to the South Florida Workforce Investment Board.

Thus my trip upstairs was to no avail, and I was sent downstairs to – you guessed it – Mr.Beasley, who referred the matter to his communications director, Olivia Almagro. Evidently thesystem was a vicious circle. Olivia Almagro, in turn, denied that the South Florida WorkforceInvestment Board was responsible for overseeing Miami Dade College in respect to the TransferCredit Game, stating that that was a matter entirely between the college and the student. Herrenunciation, made on behalf of the money-distribution power, threw Elizabeth and all like her back to the wolves in sheep’s clothing, where they are left powerless below the money-grubbing

predators in the top offices.

The fact of the matter is that the South Florida Workforce Investment Board is responsible foroversight, as is the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation and the public-private stateoversight institution, Workforce Florida, Inc. All of the above tend to play Round Robin withcomplaints that do not match the self-image projected in overarching plans and reports, preferring to wash their hands of dissonant information, passing complainants back down to theoffending local authorities for re-victimization. Undue discretion is provided to high politicalofficials of the locality for the sake of local autonomy; the oversight rhetoric overlooks the political packs that partner with business to prey on the local populace. They do not have to do be genuinely responsible: the local power elite, whose tenure has bred it to arrogance, continue

with business-as-usual, as Tallahassee daydreams.

After being put off by Ms. Almagro, who adopted a bureaucratic bullying approach during ourinitial conversations, insisting that I not publish negative information about her board, Idiscovered that she was also an adjunct professor at Miami Dade College!

Speaking of apparent conflicts of interest, Donna Jennings PhD, Director of WorkforceEducation and Development at Miami Dade College, sits on the South Florida Workforce




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Investment Board. Federal and state Workforce law provides that a member of a board cannotvote on an issue benefiting the institution she represents. However, the Miami Dade and Monroeinter-county agreement establishing South Florida Workforce Investment Board provides that amember simply may not sit on the Board if her institution benefits. Miami-Dade CountyCommission Resolution R-315-06 Resolution states:

"Representatives of business appointed to the South Florida Workforce Investment Board by theChief Elected Official of Miami-Dade County or by the Chief Elected Official of MonroeCounty shall automatically forfeit membership on the South Florida Workforce InvestmentBoard if the business so represented provides public workforce services with funds providedthrough or from Workforce Florida, Inc. during the representative’s period of membership on theSouth Florida Workforce Investment Board.”

Ms. Jennings, whose membership on the Board does create at least an appearance of impropriety,has thus far not responded to my inquiry to her as to whether or not the local resolution applies toher. It may apply to other members of the Board who represent private and for-profit educationalinstitutions. No doubt it will be otherwise interpreted by casuists on board. And never mind thatthe state public-private “partnership”, Workforce Florida Inc., is an apparent conflict of interestincorporated.

In sum, I was being run around in a vicious circle, hopeful until I became so exhausted by the“opportunities” that I gave up, or butted my head up against the local stone wall so hard that Idropped dead. And that would be perfectly legal, in accord with the Local Autonomy Game.When the Florida legislature drafted the state law that implemented the federal WorkforceInvestment Act, a preference for autonomy was taken into account: Two of the six “elements” or basic operating principles embedded in the state law at Section 445.003 Florida Statutesappertain to local autonomy: “(e) Local Board and Private Sector Leadership.--Local boards willfocus on strategic planning, policy development, and oversight of the local system, choosing

local managers to direct the operational details of their one-stop delivery system centers; (f)Local Flexibility and Integration.--Localities will have exceptional flexibility to build on existingreforms. Unified planning will free local groups from conflicting micromanagement, whilewaivers and WorkFlex will allow local innovations.”

With that public law in mind, we should be reluctant to paint prominent members of the powerelite and the Workforce Department of The System too darkly, as if they were forces of darknessconsciously engaged in boardroom conspiracies. The System controls them as well, and whatthey do appears to be not only righteous because everyone does it but lawful as well. And theLaw is essentially what rich and powerful people do, and constitutes the legalization of many oftheir crimes. Yet quite a few political rights and substantial economic crumbs have been thrown

to the needy. No one is without sin.

We recall that the governing federal Workforce Investment Act of 1998 was one product of a broad, popular social trend involving outsourcing government work to private businesses,welfare-to-work strategies, and public-private ideology. The Act purportedly provided moreemphasis to the business demand for labor than the labor demand for social welfare benefits likeeducation – I would myself go to school and study the humanities for the rest of my life if Icould. Business would save money by having the government fund education, but it still wants




~ 9 ~

employees relevantly trained, i.e. adept at tasks that enable business to make profits. The publiceducation cult advances the notion that everyone can get a good education and live prosperouslyif not happily ever after.

Now history never precisely repeats itself, but there are similarities between the human tendency, prior to both the Great Depression and the Great Recession, to cultivate a reign of greed.Religion worships Absolute Power while Politics distributes it. Money talks; business controls politics; politics is about the distribution of power i.e. money; the business of government is business; the government is substantially a business cabinet. Business does not want to do muchfor government handouts; it certainly does not want the elected officials it buys to stand in itsway. Business interests should do what they please in order to grow the economy, and the virtueof small, local business is extolled although small businesses must feed off the hind teats of big business to survive.

In any event, it is believed that local business-political autonomy, pluralism or “blessedfederalism” is preferable to strong central federal control. But strong central control may occurwith bad effects in localities too, particularly in localities like Miami Dade County, where MayorCarlos Alvarez, utilizing the Cuban and Latin American traditional preference for strong men,managed to persuade the electorate to abnegate the pluralistic power of the county commissionand approve of a strong mayor system shortly after he was elected – he was formerly a policeofficial. He is the leading elected official who appoints members of the Workforce board, andRick Beasley and his staff, including Olivia Almagro, are officially employees of Miami DadeCounty. What we have here is one ball of wax with a clique at its core. If you are not a memberif the ruling clique or do not conform to it in one way or the other, your chances of success areslim.

Miami Dade County, and especially the great city of Miami, is the domain of a tightly-knitCuban American faction. The understatement, “The Cubans run Miami,” is of course not true in

every detail but is true in general respects. Not that the fact is necessarily evil, but the biases and prejudices must be taken into account by objective observers of all persuasions.

Miami Dade College, for instance, one of the greatest community colleges in the nation, wasfirmly established and is now headed by politically powerful Eduardo Padron, known as one ofthe principle heroes of the Mariel Exodus when Cuba’s strong man opened up jails, prisons andmental institutions for emigration to the United States. Miami Dade College’s feats in bringingHispanic immigrants and other underprivileged groups into the workforce are legendary. Theresult has been stupendous. The college is sacred, can do no wrong in most of the eyes of thecommunity it serves.

Elizabeth was wronged by Miami Dade College, yet she still loves the college. When she wasasked if she was angry at the college, she said, “Yes, but can I tell you that I loved myexperience there? It did not help me with interior design, but it provided a structure for meduring a terrifying time, a time of unemployment, of not belonging, of not being wanted byemployers. I don’t like what happened to me in the end, but I shall always love Miami DadeCollege.”




~ 1 ~


Executive Director Rick Beasley’s Astonishing ClaimHe said he is determined to build on such successes.

October 26, 2010

Miami Mirror by David Arthur Walters


The percentage given by South Florida Workforce Director Rick Beasley in his 24 June2010 Miami Herald editorial entitled ‘Accountability is our priority’ was astonishing if notincredible on its face:

“The greatest proof of our operational accountability can be seen in our improved performance,” Mr. Beasley effused. “For example, 96% of the adult and laid-off workers whoreceived training funded by South Florida Workforce got a job, according to state official data.Additionally, 89% of these workers were found to still be employed six months after receivingtraining.”

Indeed, his claim elicited guffaws from a South Florida Workforce staff member whosells training programs offered by educational institutions identified in South Florida Workforceliterature as Workforce “partners,” such as Miami Dade College. The staff member did not wantto be identified for fear of being fired by Mr. Beasley.

It’s an easy sell for easy money. The student pays nothing for the government funded

programs, and the providers of training services have not been regularly held accountable fortheir performance. There has been a long line of students to get training dollars, which areinadequate during these hard times, especially given the waste. South Florida Workforce spent$12,000,000 on training in 2009. Incidentally, Mr. Beasley presented Miami Dade College with a$1,000,000 check in 2009, to buy materials such as textbooks and uniforms for nursing studentsand to help fund a Take Stock in Children program.

According to a report filed by Toluse Olorrunipa and published by the Miami Herald on11 May 2010, South Florida Workforce performance has been abysmal. Indeed, Mr. Beasleyadmitted that the South Florida Workforce had one the worst performances records in the statewhen he took over in 2005, but he thinks he has made remarkable improvements. Yet, in 2010,

reportedly fewer than 10% of students funded by South Florida Workforce funders wound up in jobs over the past three years related to the training. Few schools had returned any of theundeserved tuition, which can run up to $10,500 per student.

Complaints were made about the appearance of impropriety, i.e. an apparent conflict ofinterest: representatives of institutions receiving money are on the investment board awarding it.For instance, Donna Jennings, dean of workforce education and development at Miami DadeCollege was reportedly on the investment board.




~ 2 ~

Money going to bad performers actually increased, according to the newspaper report.Workforce record-keeping was so badly done that it is impossible to come up with crediblenumbers. The training centers themselves said the success rate since 2007 was 29.3%.

Mr. Beasley, in marked denial, claimed the real success rate was 69.4%. In any event,millions had been lost while, according to Carlos Manrique, a director on the local Workforceinvestment board, Mr. Beasley just let the money slide away, paying no attention to it.

Information is not readily available no matter how skewed or inaccurate it might be, noteven to investment board directors; Mr. Manrique actually had to file a formal public recordsrequest to get information about refunds made by the training centers. Mr. Manrique has not yetresponded to a request for information regarding Mr. Beasley’s overall performance andmanagement style.

Again, the success rate claimed for the previous three years was the 29.3% claimed bythe training centers or the 69.4% claimed by Mr. Beasley in May 2010. Yet in June 2010 Mr.Beasley would apparently have us imply from his statement that the current success rate is an

astounding 96%. How can that be?

A cynical person might think that it might have something to do with his own performance review. Denishia Robinson, Public Information Specialist for the Agency forWorkforce Innovation has not yet responded to our request for Mr. Beasley’s beginning andcurrent salary, and for a copy of the agreement between South Florida Workforce and its partnerMiami Dade College. And Adriane Grant, Director of External Affairs for Workforce Florida,Inc., the independent overseer of the Agency for Workforce Innovation, has not yet responded toour request to discuss Mr. Beasley’s performance or nonperformance.

To be fair, Mr. Beasley did not explicitly state that the training programs were completed

or that the jobs obtained were in fields related to the training. He said: “96% of the adult andlaid-off workers who received training funded by South Florida Workforce got a job, accordingto state official data. Additionally, 89% of these workers were found to still be employed sixmonths after receiving training.”

Those numbers could include someone who enrolled in training, dropped out after a fewdays, and got a job in an entirely unrelated field. Perhaps someone who gave up on becoming a public relations specialist, and out of desperation got a job serving burgers at Burger King, might be counted as training success because serving burgers calls for relations with the public. Whoknows what is behind the numbers? What the “proud” Mr. Beasley has bragged about mayamount to virtually nothing. For all know, all the improvements he otherwise lists may be

rhetorical instead of real.

We note that one of Mr. Beasley’s job qualifications, for a starting salary of $150,000 -$180,000, was “Ability to work effectively with the media.” That is, he must have public relationskills, which includes “Ability to make effective public presentations.” He must put people first,respect people, command their respect, and motivate them. And he had to have a bachelor’sdegree along with “some” working knowledge of state and federal funding sources along withknowledge of regulations. The deadline for applications was 23 May 2005, and he was hired.




~ 1 ~


TAKE IT DOWN!

South Florida Workforce Public Information Officer demands immediate removal of criticalmedia coverage

November 5, 2010MIAMI MIRRORMiami Beach, Florida

Miami Mirror’s investigative reporter David Arthur Walters was astonished when he received atelephone call from South Florida Workforce Public Information Officer Olivia Almagro on 2 November demanding the removal of a Miami Mirror article from the Internet. The article was

dated October 26 and facetiously entitled, ‘Executive Director Rick Beasley’s AstonishingClaim.’

The South Florida Workforce executive director, formerly the Director of the Missouri Divisionof Workforce Development, was hired to run South Florida Workforce in 2005. He claimed a96% success rate for his South Florida operation: “The greatest proof of our operationalaccountability can be seen in our improved performance,” Mr. Beasley effused in his 24 June2010 Miami Herald editorial. “For example, 96% of the adult and laid-off workers who receivedtraining funded by South Florida Workforce got a job, according to state official data.Additionally, 89% of these workers were found to still be employed six months after receivingtraining.”

To be fair, we noted that Mr. Beasley did not explicitly state that the training programs werecompleted or that the jobs obtained were in fields related to the training. After all, those numberscould include someone who enrolled in training, dropped out after a few days, and got a job in anentirely unrelated field. Perhaps someone who gave up on becoming a public relations specialist,and out of desperation got a job serving burgers at Burger King, might be counted as trainingsuccess because serving burgers calls for relations with the public. Who knows what is behindthe numbers? What the ‘proud’ Mr. Beasley bragged about may amount to virtually nothing, andaroused our suspicion that other improvements he would take credit for might be rhetorical ratherthan real.

Mr. Beasley has been a controversial figure with South Florida Workforce employees themselvessince he was hired, beginning with a grueling annual meeting in a dirty venue; refreshments werereportedly not served as they had been in the past; cutbacks in the number of service centersduring hard-pressed times were announced to tired and hungry employees. That was followed byan alleged downgrade in health care coverage benefits. Over the last five years, employee’sgrumbling about his human resources management and workforce development techniques hasmounted.




~ 2 ~

According to the 2005 advertisement for the executive director position, Mr. Beasley’s startingsalary must have been from $150,000 to $180,000. A 25 October a voicemail request was placedwith the Agency for Workforce Innovation for his starting and current salary; that request wasdiscussed with the Agency’s director of communications on 1 November; we have not receivedthe information in time for this release.

We emailed Mr. Beasley in good faith on 4 June, the day his astonishing claim was published bythe Miami Herald, and said the “state” numbers did not seem to jibe with the numbers given by aMiami Herald report, which stated that refunds were being or might be sought from theinstitutions doing the training because many students were not completing the programs. Ourrequest to Mr. Beasley was courteous, not mentioning the incredulous guffaws his editorial hadgarnered at a South Florida Workforce One-Stop Center. He did not respond to the originalrequest or to follow-ups until we mentioned a whistleblower, and then he did not provide us withaccess to his data.

When Olivia Almagro demanded that the Miami Mirror article be taken down, she said that

South Florida Workforce wanted it removed because it was based on erroneous Miami Heraldreports. We had conversed on that very issue the previous day, 1 November, and the MiamiMirror investigative reporter then said that one of his pet peeves was the Herald’s record of publishing falsehoods.

“I would be more than glad to go after the Herald for false reporting, and have done so in the past,” David Arthur Walters said. “All too often, I have learned that Herald reports I had reliedon were false. In one case, I discovered the Miami Herald information I had spread all over theworld was not only false but probably libelous. The Herald refused to publish retractions orcorrections, and its writers accepted awards for the stories although they were filled withrepetitious falsehoods. If you show me the falsehoods, I will be glad to go after the Herald again,and with a passion.”

But on 2 November Ms. Almagro wanted the Miami Mirror removed from the Internet,immediately, and demanded that it be removed prior to stating just what the Miami Herald errorswere. We offered to incorporate whatever objections she might make, place them in the MiamiMirror article itself, but we refused to remove the article, and suggested that she call the MiamiHerald editors and make her demand to them, that they remove their own article from theInternet servers at once, because other journalists all over the world are referring it, and see whatthe editors say to that. She said that objections had indeed been made to the Herald, referencingthe falsehoods. As of this writing, she had not put her objections in writing to the Miami Mirror.For all we know at this time, the offensive Herald article was right on the mark.

The Miami Herald article cited, ‘Has South Florida Workforce Training Done The Job?’ published on 11 May, was penned by seasoned Miami Herald reporter Toluse Olorrunipa. Wetried to reach him on 2 November, and left him a voicemail citing Ms. Almagro’s demand andasking him to discuss the matter with him. In exchange, he was invited to take a look at ourinvestigative file on South Florida Workforce’s partnership with Miami Dade College, an issuethat might have national significance if the particular college’s conduct, allegedly stringing




~ 3 ~

students along to take unnecessary courses in order to milk the government of funding up tomaximums allotted, is widespread. Mr. Olorrunipa has not responded by the time of this release.





THE CONFLICT OF INTEREST INHERENT IN THE SOUTH FLORIDA WORKFORCE

The

Root

of

the

Evil

Called

Good

is

not

in

Florida

November 25, 2010


THE MIAMI MIRROR

Editorial by David Arthur Walters

With heartfelt thanks to America the Beautiful

Olivia Almagro, spokesperson for the regional workforce investment board that calls itself

South

Florida

Workforce

–

it

is

a

fictitious

name

–

was

adamant

in

her

insistence

that

the

Miami

Mirror take down one of its articles from the Internet because the article referred to offensive

content produced by seasoned reporter Toluse Olorunnipa and posted on the Internet by the

Miami Herald on May 11, 2010 under the heading, ‘Has South Florida Workforce training done

the job?’

The occasion for the discussion with Ms. Almagro was the claim of a Miami Dade College

student that Miami Dade College was requiring courses that had nothing to do with the

program promoted to her, and, when the time for graduation had come, the college, which

South Florida Workforce identifies as its “partner,” reneged on its earlier promise to accept

transfer credits from superior schools. South Florida Workforce had previously sold the student

on the

idea

of

enrolling

in

a “free”

i.e.

government

‐funded

interior

design

program

at

Miami

Dade College in order to get the credential required for licensure by the Florida Board of

Architecture and Interior Design.

It appeared that Miami Dade College was simply changing its transfer credit policy under an

open‐ended relationship with its “partner”, South Florida Workforce, to string along students

and milk the public for the maximum amount allowable under the grants. The college can

virtually do nothing wrong because of the early reputation the college and its politically

connected founder and current president Eduardo Padron gained by educating and placing into

the workforce the massive influx of Cubans who immigrated into South Florida when Fidel

Castro opened up the tiny nation’s jails, prisons and mental hospitals to inmates willing to

emigrate to

the

United

States.

The

results

are

indeed

stupendous,

and

Mr.

Padron

deserves

the

designation of “hero.”

~ 1 ~

The student demanded that she be given the degree promised and required for licensure, or

that the grant money be refunded. It turned out that the Board of Architecture and Interior

Design had not even approved of the Miami Dade College Interior Design curricula because the

college had not bothered to apply for approval. Neither South Florida Workforce nor Miami




Dade College responded to the student’s 25 August 2010 letter of complaint and request. The

Miami Mirror proceeded with its investigation and published an article referring to South

Florida Workforce’s deplorable record revealed by the Miami Herald.

The daily newspaper’s critical statements about South Florida Workforce training were false,

Ms. Almagro

insisted,

and

she

demanded

that

the

Miami

Mirror

article

be

removed

until

such

time as she had time to address the false statements. The Miami Mirror refused, and said she

should first demand that the Herald editors remove the offensive article from the servers. She

said that South Florida Workforce had in fact protested to the Miami Herald but to no avail.

We are standing by for Ms. Almagro’s rebuttal, and we do so with suspended judgment since

we know from our experience, with the false and perhaps actually malicious statements that

the Herald published, defaming a state official and his department, while covering the Allen

Stanford fraud, that the fact that it stands on a story does not mean it is correct, especially

when it wins awards for one riddled with falsehoods.

Mr. Olorrunipa’s

scandalous

piece

referred

to

the

lousy

statistical

performance

record

of

“South Florida Workforce” – the regional workforce investment board – and its training

partners, whose representatives may sit on the board, thus creating a potential conflict of

interest. We let the article speak for itself:

“Four of the training organizations with large Workforce contracts have representatives on its

44‐member policy making board, posing a potential conflict of interest.”

“With four SFW board members representing training providers that receive Workforce

funding, conflict of interest questions have come up repeatedly at recent board meetings.”

“Carlos Manrique,

who

represents

Miami

‐Dade

County

Public

Schools

on

the

South

Florida

Workforce Investment Board, contends money that should have gone to upgrade unemployed

workers' skills has been wasted due to a lack of accountability among the private firms hired to

train workers.”

“Such potential conflicts of interests are one reason the board has been slow to act on

problems, said Manrique, whose employer, The Miami‐Dade school system, is itself an SFW

training provider that receives about $500,000 annually in training funds. Donna Jennings, dean

of workforce education and development at Miami Dade College; Maria Cristina Regueiro,

founder of the private trade school Florida National College; and Perez, owner of The Academy

of South Florida, also hold positions on the board. Their organizations accepted $1.7 million in

SFW training

money

last

year

alone.”

“According to data Manrique shared with The Miami Herald, at least 20 schools have not

refunded any money despite reporting low graduation rates for SFW students.”

~ 2 ~

“[South Florida Workforce Executive Director] Beasley recently sent out letters to 30 training

providers telling them to submit complete data to SFW or be dropped from the program. It was




the first significant move toward training‐provider sanctions during Beasley's tenure. Nearly all

the schools have responded, he said, and his staff is in the process of verifying the data. But

millions of dollars may have already been lost during years of loose regulation, said Manrique,

who has been on the board for 12 years. `’Nobody's paid attention to it,'’ Manrique said.

‘[Beasley] has just let it slide and never paid any attention to it.' “

Chapter 445 of the Florida Statutes, the Florida Workforce Innovation Act of 2000

implementing the federal Workforce Innovation Act of 1998, addresses such conflicts of

interest:

“If the regional workforce board enters into a contract with an organization or individual

represented on the board of directors, the contract must be approved by a two‐thirds vote of

the entire board, and the board member who could benefit financially from the transaction

must abstain from voting on the contract. A board member must disclose any such conflict in a

manner that is consistent with the procedures outlined in s. 112.3143” [Fla. Stat.]

Since we

have

no

record

of

such

abstentions,

we

shall

by

means

of

this

article

ask

Mr.

Almagro

to disclose whether or not there were any abstentions, and we shall also ask her by this means

if the ordinance hereunder applies, and if it does, whether or not board members were

removed as specified, or if some “ethical” casuistry was employed to skirt the issue.

Miami‐Dade County Commission Resolution Number R‐315‐06, the local ordinance governing

the South Florida Workforce board, i.e. regional workforce investment board No. 23, appears to

call for the removal of any local board member with an apparent conflict of interest: The

Resolution states:

“Representatives of business appointed to the South Florida Workforce Investment Board by

the Chief

Elected

Official

of

Miami

‐Dade

County

or

by

the

Chief

Elected

Official

of

Monroe

County shall automatically forfeit membership on the South Florida Workforce Investment

Board if the business so represented provides public workforce services with funds provided

through or from Workforce Florida, Inc. during the representative’s period of membership on

the South Florida Workforce Investment Board.”

The Resolution was the product of extensive negative reports on the performance of the South

Florida Workforce system that comprises the South Florida Employment and Training

Consortium Board and the South Florida Workforce Investment Board.

The South Florida Employment and Training Consortium Board is a board created by an

Interlocal Agreement

between

Miami

‐Dade

County

and

Monroe

County

for

the

purpose

of

acting on behalf of the elected officials whose representatives sit on the Consortium Board. It

receives grant money, assumes financial liability according to state and federal law, and is

responsible for appointing the members of the South Florida Workforce Investment Board.

~ 3 ~

The South Florida Workforce Investment Board dba South Florida Workforce is a local or

regional government board. Section 445.007 Fla. Stat. provides that one regional workforce




board shall be appointed in each designated service delivery area and shall serve as the local

workforce investment board pursuant to the federal Workforce Investment Act of 1998. Local

board duties include planning and oversight, budgeting, collecting data, promoting private

sector involvement in the statewide investment system, and negotiating agreement on

performance measures. The South Florida Workforce Investment Board may not directly

provide services

to

the

public,

but

it

selects

One

Stop

operators

that

do

as

well

as

youth

service

providers.

It is said that South Florida would not be South Florida absent prevalent conflicts of interest,

but of course it is not alone in that respect. The South Florida Workforce Investment Board was

one of only two Florida regional boards not in compliance with the law according to the

standards set by Workforce Florida Inc. hence the local board was not re‐chartered in 2006. In

fact, at that time it had not been chartered since 2002. And a mandated Workforce Services

Plan had not been approved since the 1998 Act.

Workforce Florida Inc. is the non‐profit corporation that monitors and oversees the

administration of

the

state

Workforce

policy,

and

all

of

its

activities

including

designating

local

areas, reviewing local plans, and the programs and services implemented by the local boards. It

is not a government entity, and is not in any manner subject to the control of the state agency

named the Agency for Workforce Innovation. It is obliged by law to design and implement

strategies that help Floridians enter, remain in, and advance in the workplace, to serve as the

statewide Workforce Investment Board pursuant to the federal Workforce Investment Act, and

to providing oversight and policy direction to ensure that relevant Workforce programs are

properly administered by the Agency for Workforce Innovation in compliance with approved

plans and under contract with Workforce Florida, Inc.

The Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation, in turn, is the state’s leading workforce agency. It

describes itself as a “partner” of Workforce Florida, Inc. Its duties are set forth in Section 20.50

of the Florida Statutes, and include ensuring that the state appropriately administers federal

and state workforce funding by administering plans and policies of Workforce Florida, Inc.,

under contract with Workforce Florida, Inc. The Agency receives federal grants and funds and

administers them as directed by the Governor. It expends the funds according to law and as

directed by Workforce Florida, Inc. The statute declares that “All program and fiscal instructions

to regional workforce boards shall emanate from the agency pursuant to plans and policies of

Workforce Florida, Inc. Workforce Florida, Inc. shall be responsible for all policy directions to

the regional boards.” It has many other duties besides.

~ 4 ~

It was

evident

to

everyone

concerned

by

the

dismal

performance

of

the

South

Florida

system

that it had to be restructured. The management of the existing structure was criticized for its

lack of coordination and effectiveness. The division of labor was confused and serious

communication problems existed. Incompetency was evident throughout the organization.

The hiring and firing of South Florida Workforce Investment Board staff was influenced by the

South Florida Employment and Training Consortium Board. The staff served two masters and

was not providing accurate information to the South Florida Workforce Investment Board if it




reflected negatively on the Consortium. Conflicts of interest were apparent. Members of the

Consortium were service providers, and service providers were sitting on the South Florida

Workforce Investment Board.

It appears that Workforce Florida Inc.’s main concern was with the conflict of interest between

the South

Florida

Employment

and

Training

Consortium

Board

and

the

South

Florida

Workforce

Investment Board, that government service providers were members of the South Florida

Workforce Investment Board, and not so much with the fact that private service providers were

sitting on the South Florida Workforce Investment Board. A 28 December 2005 letter to

Executive Director Rick Beasley states:

“The Miami‐Dade/Monroe region is governed differently than any other local board. The

existence of the consortium pre‐dates the Workforce Investment Act. The existence of the

consortium, per se, is not directly the state’s business. However, when governments that are

partners in the consortium both appoint members to the board and apply to do business with

the board (as service providers) a conflict (perceived or real) occurs which is not acceptable to

Workforce Florida

and

is

in

direct

conflict

with

the

principle

enunciated

by

the

Florida

legislature in Section 445.007(5), Florida Statutes. The Legislature indicated that regional

boards are not to be direct service providers in order “to exercise independent oversight.”

Section 445.007(5) Fl. Stat. reads: “In order to exercise independent oversight, the regional

workforce board shall not be a direct provider of intake, assessment, eligibility determinations,

or other direct provider services.”

The President of Workforce Florida Inc. met with at the office of Miami‐Dade County Mayor

Carlos Alvarez on June 25, 2005, with the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation

collaborating, and a conclusion was reached that a brand new structure must be created so WFI

can charter

Region

23

for

FY

2005

‐2007.

Otherwise,

Workforce

Florida

Inc.

would

have

to

implement an alternative measure.

It was concluded that the Executive Director must be selected by and be responsible to the

South Florida Workforce Investment Board, and not to the South Florida Employment and

Training Consortium Board; conflicts should be eliminated so that the counties, for example,

are not both exercising oversight authority and directly providing workforce services funded by

Workforce Florida Inc; and appointments to South Florida Workforce Investment Board must

comply with statutory representation categories.

~ 5 ~

The

Resolution

proposed

and

eventually

passed

provided

in

part

that

a

new

Interlocal

Agreement would create a South Florida Workforce Investment Board governed by all

legislation applicable to Miami‐Dade County boards, which would presumably eliminate the

ethical breaches and conflict of interest issues. The executive director of the South Florida

Workforce Investment Board would be selected by the South Florida Workforce Investment

Board and would be an employee of Miami‐Dade County, but s/he could be removed at the

discretion of the South Florida Workforce Investment Board. The Executive Director’s and the




staff’s status as employees of Miami‐Dade County would remove sovereign immunity liabilities

for staff i.e. they could not be held personally liable for tort claims.

South Florida voter have a predilection for strong central authority figures despite the

experience of its most powerful faction with the Cuban regime. Executive Director Rick Beasley,

like Mayor

Carlos

Alvarez,

who

managed

to

institute

a controversial

strong

mayor

system

after

taking office, has virtually dictatorial powers over his domain, according to the Resolution.

Board members i.e. directors, for example, must keep their hands off employees: all matters

involving employees may only be dealt with through him.

Among other clauses, the counties agreed not to provide direct public Workforce services

funded by Workforce Florida, Inc. And, again, “Representatives of business appointed to the

South Florida Workforce Investment Board by the Chief Elected Official of Miami‐Dade County

or by the Chief Elected Official of Monroe County shall automatically forfeit membership on the

South Florida Workforce Investment Board if the business so represented provides public

workforce services with funds provided through or from Workforce Florida, Inc. during the

representative’s period

of

membership

on

the

South

Florida

Workforce

Investment

Board.”

Speaking of real or apparent conflicts of interest, the last time we looked, the board of directors

of Workforce Florida Inc. included representatives of private schools such as its chairperson,

Belinda Keiser, who is Vice Chancellor at Keiser University. Adriane Grant, the director of

external affairs at Florida Workforce Inc., did not respond to our requests for Ms. Keiser’s

contact information, therefore attempts were made to reach her at Keiser University, but she

did not respond.

U.S. Senate committee hearings on deceptive and fraudulent practices of educational

institutions were recently held wherein students including Florida students complained among

other things

that

for

‐profit

schools

had

been

lying

to

them.

That

did

not

sit

well

with

for

‐profit

schools including Keiser University. According to a 12 October 2010 Miami Herald report filed

by Michael Vasquez, Keiser University actually sued a community college for its “destructive

media campaign.”

Everyone concerned with legitimate education agreed that diploma mills should be put out of

business, but it appeared that the liberal Congress had embarked on an anti‐business witch

hunt. The for‐profits in turn pointed fingers at alleged misconduct by community colleges that

are tax‐exempt and subsidized by governments.

~ 6 ~

The

4

August

2010

General

Accounting

Office

report

(GAO‐

10‐

948T)

to

the

Senate

is

entitled

‘For‐Profit Colleges: Undercover Testing Finds Colleges Encouraged Fraud and Engaged in

Deceptive and Questionable Marketing Practices.’ We do not know whether or not undercover

agents investigated Miami Dade College for the General Accounting Office. We doubt it, as the

college is virtually sacrosanct and has powerful political connections. The GAO has not

responded to our request to provide information on whether an investigation Miami Dade

College was made, and, if so, the results.




The Miami Mirror search for the root of the conflict‐of ‐interest evil found it not in Miami, a city

notorious for corruption of all sorts, or in Florida, the sunny state that has housed many

prominent fraudsters including Charles Ponzi himself, but in a national power elite whose

corruption and plundering of America is sophistically advanced under an euphemism that

excuses the outsourcing and neglect of critical public welfare responsibilities such as education

and employment

and

government

itself

to

business

interests

whose

main

interest

is

the

bottom

line, and whose owners and executives do not conduct themselves in a republican or

democratic fashion.

As for the euphemism, we speak of the deceptive and fraudulent phrase, “public‐private

partnership.” What we have is not a real partnership, but an “agreement” that we must adhere

to or else, fashioned by lawyers bound to prove that the Law is what rich people do mostly for

themselves, with enough to the rest to avert troublesome unrest or revolution. In fine, the

nation has regressed to the pre‐Depression understanding that the business of government is

not government but business.

Given the

way

the

governing

law

is

written,

providing

the

same

bed

for

conjugal

relations

of

public and private interests, there are bound to be conflicts of interest everywhere. What

would America be without them?

~ 7 ~




~ 8 ~




~ 1 ~


MIAMI-DADE WORKFORCE BOARD CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The Appearance of Impropriety Persists

December 29, 2010

By David Arthur WaltersMIAMI MIRROR


An investigation by the Miami Mirror has uncovered evidence corroborating a May 11, 2010Miami Herald report that Miami-Dade County Carlos Alvarez’ South Florida WorkforceInvestment Board is not providing adequate and competent administrative oversight overworkforce training funds granted to its so-called partners, some of whose representatives sit onthe South Florida Workforce Investment Board. Olivia Almagro, spokesperson for South FloridaWorkforce, has objected to Miami Mirror’s references to the Miami Herald report, ordering us todelete our references to the report because it is false; however, she has declined to provide anyinformation whatsoever of the falsity so our references stand with the Miami Herald stance, andshe has not responded one way or the other to our independent findings.

Our investigation proceeded with an allegation by a student at Miami-Dade College that SouthFlorida Workforce had sold her on the idea of taking a “free” i.e. grant-funded course in InteriorDesign at Miami-Dade College in order to obtain the degree necessary for licensure by theFlorida Board of Architecture and Interior Design. There was some initial wrangling over thecredits she wanted transferred from superior art and design schools up north; however, that issuewas settled, and she pursued her studies, becoming an honor student. Caseworkers andcounselors with South Florida Workforce and its partner Miami Dade College were involved atall times in this process, which was supposed to end when she finally accelerated her studies toobtain the degree as agreed.

The student stated that many of the courses she had to take had nothing to do with interiordesign, an art in which she already had many years of experience and formal education, but shewent along with the program in order to get her degree. But in the end, instead of giving her the

degree, Miami-Dade College told her that she would have to start from the beginning because itstransfer credit policy had been retroactively changed. She said that other students complained ofthe same behavior to her. It appeared that the college was simply manipulating its policy toobtain more revenue i.e. maximize its grant income.

On August 25, 2010, she addressed South Florida Workforce and Miami-Dade College, andasked that she be granted the degree as promised or that the granted money be returned to thegrantor. No response was forthcoming from South Florida Workforce Executive Director Rick




~ 2 ~

Beasley and staff, who are defined as “employees” of Miami Dade County, except evasivenessand stonewalling. When the matter was taken upstairs, to the state level, it was simply referred back down to Rick Beasley in a manner indicating that the South Florida workforce regiongoverned by Miami-Dade County is given too much autonomy.

Our subsequent investigation discovered that the Florida Board of Architecture and InteriorDesign had not even approved of the Miami-Dade College Interior Design Curriculum becausethe college had never bothered to apply for approval. Furthermore, it appeared that Florida law provided for immediate licensure of this person because she already had three years ofexperience and three years of education outside the state. However that may be, both her timeand the grantor’s funds were wasted – Rick Beasley would not reveal the names of thegrantor(s), citing privacy concerns, and spokesperson Olivia Almagro declined to identify thegrantor(s) of the funds unless $50 is paid for the information.

The performance of South Florida Workforce in respect to its training and education partnershave been the subject of longstanding criticism, which came to head in a report produced by

seasoned Miami Herald reporter Toluse Olorunnipa and posted on the Internet by the MiamiHerald on May 11, 2010 under the heading, ‘Has South Florida Workforce training done the job?’ Money was not being refunded by certain providers who had not met performancestandards. And conflicts of interested were rife: “The Miami-Dade school system is itself anSFW training provider that receives about $500,000 annually in training funds. Donna Jennings,dean of workforce education and development at Miami Dade College; Maria Cristina Regueiro,founder of the private trade school Florida National College; and Perez, owner of The Academyof South Florida, also hold positions on the board. Their organizations accepted $1.7 million inSFW training money last year alone.” Board member Carlos Manrique of Miami-Dade CountySchools reportedly told the Miami Herald that Rick Beasley had let devastating data slide, doingnothing about it although it indicated millions of dollars may have been lost.

The use of the term “slide” is particularly interesting in the light of information received fromMiami-Dade Transit employees about an informal policy called “Just Let It Slide” invoked tokeep the transportation system going. It does appear to competent but unemployed individuals inthe area that government is filled with persons who should be replaced by them.

The Miami Mirror emailed Miami-Dade College executive Donna Jennings on December 14,stating that the fact that she sits on the SFWIB while her college is receiving Workforce fundingcreates an appearance of impropriety which, if our reading is correct, Miami-Dade CountyCommission Resolution R-315-06 would prevent by automatic removal of any local (regionalworkforce) board member with an apparent conflict of interest. We also noted that one OliviaAlmagro, who has been representing South Florida Workforce in regards to our investigation of

the student’s allegations, is also an adjunct professor at Miami-Dade College. Dr. Jennings wasasked whether or not the issue had been taken up on her Workforce board, and asked her forcomments on the conflict of interest issue. She has not responded.

Again, the conflict of interest issue is not new. Florida’s statewide overarching public-privateworkforce oversight entity, Workforce Florida, Inc., had at one time refused to charter the SouthFlorida workforce board, which was then operating as South Florida Workforce, Inc., a Sec.501(c) (3) non-profit corporation, unless it was restructured to eliminate conflicts of interest




~ 3 ~

between it and the providers of public services, including counties, municipalities, and businesses profit and non-profit. The ideally independent corporation was discarded in favor ofthe creation of just another government board, South Florida Workforce Investment Board, doing business under the fictitious name South Florida Workforce. Thus the potential for conflicts wasaugmented when the independent corporation was trashed; however, South Florida Workforce,

Inc. approved of the restructuring.

Neither South Florida Workforce, Inc, nor South Florida Workforce Investment Board, norFlorida Agency for Workforce Innovation, nor Miami-Dade County’s mayor have thus far beenable to explain why the non-profit corporation was trashed – many local workforce boardsthroughout Florida and the nation are non-profit corporations. We note that the corporation wasadministrative dissolved by the Florida Division of Corporations for failure to file its annualreport. Apparently the formality of filing for dissolution as provided by law was not followed bythe corporate directors. Mr. Beasley sent a letter to the Division saying that the corporation was just a government board not subject to filing requirements. We have been unable to ascertainwhether or not the affairs of the corporation were wound up in an orderly fashion and whathappened to any funds and property in its possession at the time of dissolution.

Today, after the restructuring, the South Florida Workforce Investment Board is the local Floridaworkforce board for region 23, created pursuant to the federal Workforce Investment Act of1998 as implemented by Florida’s Workforce Innovation Act, and locally by an InterlocalAgreement between Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties as adopted by Miami Dade CountyCommission Resolution R-315-06. Its members are appointed by the chief elected official ofMiami Dade County; currently, Carlos Alvarez. That Resolution states, in part:

“Representatives of businesses appointed to the SFWIB [South Florida Workforce InvestmentBoard] by the Chief Elected Official of Miami-Dade County or Monroe County shall not includerepresentatives of business which are providers of public workforce services with funds provided

through or from Workforce Florida, Inc. Representatives of business appointed to the WFWIB by the Chief Elected Official of Miami-Dade County or by the Chief Elected Official of MonroeCounty shall automatically forfeit membership on the South Florida Workforce InvestmentBoard if the business so represented provides public workforce services with funds providedthrough or from Workforce Florida, Inc. during the representative’s period of membership on theSouth Florida Workforce Investment Board.”

Mayor Alvarez was queried by The Miami Mirror on December 8, 2010, referring him to the November 25, 2010 Miami Mirror editorial ‘The Conflict of Interest Inherent in South FloridaWorkforce,’ and informing him that a source had identified him as “the strong man behind SouthFlorida Workforce.” He was asked what he had done to remove members with conflicts of

interest as per R-315-06, and why the non-profit corporation had been discarded.

Mayor Alvarez responded, irrelevantly, on December 16, with: “Dear Mr. Walters: Thank youfor your e-mail. I’ve attached the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners Resolution R-315-06, which details the restructuring of the South Florida Workforce Investment Board(SFWIB). We take allegations of impropriety very seriously. If you have information thatwarrants an investigation into SFWIB, I encourage you to contact the Miami-Dade PoliceDepartment Public Corruption Unit. Sincerely, Carlos Alvarez, Mayor, Miami-Dade County.”




~ 4 ~

http://www.miamidade.gov/govaction/legistarfiles/Matters/Y2006/060360.pdf

State law does provide for a procedure for dealing with conflicts of interest on workforce boardswhere there are representatives of institutions receiving workforce funds sitting on the boards,

but it would appear that the local rule might prevail since it is more stringent than state law,especially given the workforce act’s emphasis on local autonomy. The state statute implementingthe federal workforce act provides that, “If the regional workforce board enters into a contractwith an organization or individual represented on the board of directors, the contract must beapproved by a two-thirds vote of the entire board, and the board member who could benefitfinancially from the transaction must abstain from voting on the contract. A board member mustdisclose any such conflict in a manner that is consistent with the procedures outlined in s.112.3143.” See Section 445.007 Regional workforce boards

We are unable to ascertain whether or not any rule dealing with conflicts of interest has beenfollowed. Indeed, getting a straight and relevant answer out of Florida officials and bureaucrats

who are supposed to be accountable and from those who are supposed to hold them accountableis exceedingly difficult if not impossible regardless of the issue involved. Of course positive public relations statements are made. Any negative statement about their behavior is simplydenied as “inaccurate” or “false,” and nothing is done to clear up the alleged inaccuracy andfalsehood by providing accurate and truthful statements. Perhaps no answers are given by theauthorities because they do not have the time to answer, or are ignorant and incompetent toanswer, or they simply do not have to answer short of judicial process. This much is obvious:they have held their jobs for far too long, and are in dire need of replacement and retraining.




~ 1 ~


The Florida Workforce System Needs a Better Interior Design

November 18, 2010

By David Arthur Walters

MIAMI MIRROR


The Miami Mirror is currently investigating the case of a South Florida resident, whom we shall

call Elizabeth. She was laid off from her job two years ago. She applied for and receivedunemployment benefits, and diligently sought work with no success. She said the terribleeconomic environment was worsened for her because she was subjected to discrimination against

women over the age of fifty in her areas of expertise, and most level jobs overqualified people

may take out of desperation require fluency in Spanish. She said South Florida Workforce was

unable to help her find a job, and its personnel marveled that they could not place someone withher qualifications.

In fact, Elizabeth does not want to be identified because she was a high profile person during a

marriage where she was savagely beaten by a highly placed man who may now spend the rest of

his life in prison for his frauds. She was defrauded too, of her personal fortune, and wound upworking for a nonprofit organization that shelters abused wives and children, many of them

victims of high profile husbands and fathers. She is apprehensive that officials might leak her

identity if their organizations might somehow be embarrassed by a troublesome investigation, in

order to deflect blame by “re-victimizing the victim,” something she said she had seen happentime and time again, and she said she has no intention of becoming a professional victim.

Elizabeth often visited her local Workforce One-Stop Center, where she was sold on the idea of

getting Miami Dade College credentials in her main field of interest, interior design, in whichshe has many years of experience and considerable education in fine schools, but she did not

have a license to practice on her own in the State of Florida because Florida requires educational

certification to get the license.

Florida is one of only three states that require licensure in order for persons to hold themselvesout to the public as interior designers. The Florida Board of Architecture and Interior Design isthe licensing authority that approves of the education and experience of architects and interior

designers prior to issuance of licenses. Public policy obviously requires the qualification of

architects so that buildings will be less likely to fall down. Apparently, interior designers must bequalified so people will be less likely to trip over furnishings and/or be appalled by unseemly

appearances in the interiors of those buildings.




~ 2 ~

Elizabeth said she was delighted when South Florida Workforce told her that funding was

available for an interior design program at Miami Dade College. She signed up for the program.There was initially some confusion over whether or not the college would accept her credits from

other schools, but she was finally told that the transfer credits would be accepted. She was

required to take a number of courses she believed were irrelevant to interior design, but she

cooperated to get the degree she wanted. She said she enjoyed studying at Miami Dade College,although she was learning nothing new about interior design – her experience in the field

extended over twenty-one years. Particularly useless, she said, was a course in abstruse

philosophy delivered by a teacher apparently confused by philosophy. Yet she completed allcourses finally agreed upon in consultation with her Workforce caseworker and college

counselor, and with high marks; she was supposed to get the degree she had strived for.

The timing seemed perfect. Just by coincidence, an old friend familiar with her interior design

reputation had gotten Elizabeth a key position in the field, which she delayed filling for two

weeks until she passed what she was thought was to be her final exam. She was preparing tocelebrate her graduation when a bolt descended from the blue: she was told that certain transfer

credits from other schools, which she had been told would be accepted by Miami Dade College,

were no longer acceptable due to a recent change in policy, therefore she would virtually have tostart over and retake a slew of courses she very well could have taught.

For strategic reasons, Elizabeth normally presents a stoic appearance when confronted with

misfortune. Yet she confessed that she was internally devastated at first, and then very angry.

She noted that other students were complaining about the change in transfer credit policy.

Now Elizabeth loves her new job in the field she loves the most, but it is demanding due to

accelerating demand at the luxury end of the economy. She is currently working seven days aweek, up to twelve hours a day, designing interiors for high end clients, and at this writing she is

out of the country completing a design job for one of them. She has no time to retake courses

simply to satisfy the college’s budget requirements. It was apparent to her and to other studentswith similar experience that Miami Dade College was stringing students along to maximize its

revenue; in her case, the total grant availability. The College’s financial problems had been well publicized; it was cutting programs, asking for tuition increases, and so on – but was still able to

invest millions in real estate. South Florida Workforce Director Rick Beasley chipped in,

delivering a million dollar check to the college to help with its nursing program.

On 25 August 2010, after getting a runaround from South Florida Workforce personnel trying

falsely to claim her as a big success story instead of taking her disappointing experience to heart,Elizabeth petitioned South Florida Workforce and Miami Dade College to produce the degree

she was entitled to, or to refund the money to the funding source. No response to her request was

forthcoming from anyone after two months of anxious waiting. Naturally, she was more thanchagrined by the fact that not a single person had contacted her since she presented her written

request on 25 August 2010.

The Miami Mirror followed up, locally, to no avail. Therefore statewide authorities were

contacted, to no avail. For instance, Adrianne Grant, the external affairs director for Workforce

Florida Inc., which has policy and oversight functions over Workforce system, referred thematter to the state agency and back to the local level, saying it was preferable that all issues be




~ 3 ~

dealt with locally. Finally Olivia Almagro, local Public Information Officer for South Florida

Workforce called about the matter. She insisted that “South Florida Workforce has nothing to dowith and cannot interfere with Miami Dade College’s transfer-credit policies, because that is

strictly a matter between the college and the student.”

Ms. Almagro remarked that what had happened to Elizabeth was normal procedure at colleges.

She said the college had been contacted, but she would say nothing further about the matter,

citing privacy concerns. She repeated her statement that South Florida Workforce has nothing todo with the college’s transfer crediting policies, and that the student must take the matter up with

the college. Therefore, Ms Almagro said she could not understand what was wanted of South

Florida Workforce. Nonetheless, she asked that a list of questions be submitted to her on thematter, and repeatedly demanded that this reporter travel out to the South Florida Workforce

office near the airport to get her oral answers in person. She also demanded that Miami Mirror

take down an article critical of her board’s success statistics.

Ms. Almagro was informed that the Miami Mirror had no further questions for her personally,

and that her statement as South Florida Workforce’s position on the predicament of the studentwould be quoted as her answer to the student’s predicament. Obviously, South Florida

Workforce did not want anything to do with the matter, and its public relations facility was

limited to the denial of any responsibility whatsoever for its partner and service provider’streatment of the student. Her official statement does seem to be contradicted in several respects;

for example: Chapter 445.003 of the Florida Statutes, implementing the federal Workforce

Investment Act of 1998, provides as follows: “(1) Workforce Investment Act Principles. – The

state’s approach to implementing the federal Workforce Investment Act of 1998, Pub. L. No.105-220, should have six elements … (d) Increased Accountability. –The … training providers

will be held accountable for their performance…. (e) Local Board and Private Sector Leadership.

– Local boards will focus on … oversight of the local system….” Miami Dade College isidentified as South Florida Workforce’s “partner” in that system.

Subsequent to speaking with Ms. Almagro, I received a call from Robby Cunningham, Director

of Communications for Florida’s Agency for Workforce Innovation. Mr. Cunningham said hewanted to provide a “background” for discussing the predicament Elizabeth and other students

found themselves in; that is, the nature and responsibilities of the Workforce entities involved:

Workforce Florida, Inc., the Agency for Workforce Innovation, and South Florida Workforce.

However, when asked about what sort of legal entity South Florida Workforce is, he was not

certain; we speculated that it was a nonprofit corporation. My subsequent investigationdiscovered that South Florida Workforce Inc. had in fact been dissolved shortly after Mr.

Beasley was hired in 2005, ostensibly for failure to file its annual reports. Mr. Cunningham

looked into the matter and came up with a 2006 fictitious name application along with letterwritten by Mr. Beasley to the Division of Corporations stating that “South Florida Workforce” is

a fictitious name and that the local i.e. ‘regional’ board is exempt from corporate registration

because it is a government board. However, many local boards in Florida and the nation

registered as and remain in good standing as nonprofit corporations. Mr. Cunningham promisedto look into the legal ramifications.




~ 4 ~

Mr. Cunningham also promised to look into and answer a few other questions, one important one

being, to whom can suggestions for improvement be directed? Indeed, those of us who have hadsome executive experience would have had the issue investigated immediately and would have

already done something to resolve it and eliminate its cause. If the problem is what it appears to

be, the way to prevent recurrences of related difficulties is obvious. One does not even have to be

an experience manager or executive to understand what must be done; all that is required iscommon sense.

The customer committed to complete courses so she could get the certification in interior design

needed to obtain a professional license. But the agreement was one-sided, the college’s side

being open-ended, for the college with the cooperation of its public partner and virtual salesagent, the government board that calls itself South Florida Workforce, could at its own discretion

change its mind about what courses must be taken to complete the program and what transfer

credits would be accepted.

Potential students and their parents would normally laugh out loud at that kind proposition if

they were to be personally liable for the tuition. But here we have so-called public-private partnerships shoveling out free government money for education, and desperately unemployed

people eager to cooperate with the most ridiculous or misunderstood grant terms after hearing the

sales pitch about their bright re-educated future.

Time and time again we hear Workforce students say they took many courses they did not need

simply because they were told by the Workforce salesperson that the unwanted courses happenedto be on the grant matrix at the time, and they thought that was the way to get into the free

system and eventually get what they wanted. That sort of arrangement raises the potential for

unjust enrichment and outright fraud

Another student, whom we call Betty, in another region of Florida, informed me that she wanted

to become a horticulturalist, but her Workforce caseworker told her that the men on the local board did not approve of agricultural curricula for women; if she signed up for a course in golfcourse maintenance, that would be immediately funded and she would get into the system to get

a degree. Betty said she later found out that she did not need Workforce to get her the grant, that

she could have taken the courses she wanted, and Workforce had wasted a great deal of her time;

however, her books were paid for, she got some gas money, and found out that golf coursemaintenance is highly paid. Still, Betty’s alleged treatment was contrary to the provisions of the

enabling act; to wit: “Empowering Individuals. -- Eligible participants will make informed

decisions, choosing the qualified training program that best meets their needs.” We are mindfulhere of the German National Socialist Party agenda that pulled women out of office jobs to put

them into occupations purportedly more suited to females, such as nursing. We might think that

horticulture would be acceptable since women invented it while men were away hunting orwarring on one another.

What is needed is a definite contract with definite terms for the program as a whole, bettertraining of the Workforce sales force as well as the student counselors at the colleges, and better

record keeping everywhere, so when customers are unjustly manipulated to maximize federal

and state grant money, the whole matter does not boil down to “he said she said.”




~ 5 ~

Wherefore Mr. Cunningham’s answer to our question - To whom can suggestions be directed? –

is greatly anticipated. We have contacted the chief executive officer of Florida, Governor CharlieCrist, but his office simply refers the matter back down the system, to public relations officers

who do not make the decisions and whose job is, other than providing information, is to greet

problematic inquiries as hostile and to raise a rhetorical defense; in other words, to shine people

on, and not to confess wrongs unless confronted with irrefutable evidence, which they try to castin the least harmful way.

Even if there were no provable fraud on the government, if this is simply the usual government

negligence and mismanagement taxpayers complain about, perhaps the Republicans whom

socialist liberals love to hate, and the much-maligned Governor-elect Rick Scott and his team, aswell as fiscal conservatives of all casts, may step in to see if the money shovels can be put to

better use.

Now we have just uncovered a fact that would seem to indicate that there was fraud in

Elizabeth’s case, or at least fraud was suggested when for-profit colleges were taken to task

recently in testimony before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, U.S.Senate. On 4 August 2010, the United States Government Accountability Office disclosed that

undercover testing found that colleges encouraged fraud and engaged in deceptive and

questionable marketing practices. One complaint was that students were being sold programsthat did not qualify them for the jobs they expected to get as promised. Nonprofit and community

colleges were left unscathed, to the chagrin of the for-profits. The diploma mills and other

miscreant institutions certainly need to be eliminated or reformed, yet the attack on for-profit

colleges appeared to be politically motivated.

We have not yet been able to obtain information about whether or not federal undercoverinvestigators were sent into Miami Dade College. Miami Dade College is virtually sacrosanct in

South Florida. It was developed by its politically connected current president, Dr. Eduardo J.

Padron, a hero to Cubans who immigrated to Florida when Fidel Castro opened up the prisonsand mental institutions, and were given preference by the United States. Dr. Padron has not

responded to Elizabeth’s 25 August 2010 plea for her degree or a refund to the grant maker – shenaturally hoped the powerful man would be her hero too.

The smoking gun uncovered in the case of Elizabeth is that, although the Florida Board ofArchitecture and Interior Design has certain education requirements as a prerequisite for

licensure, it has not approved of Miami Dade College’s interior design curricula because the

college has not even applied for the approval. So it would appear that Elizabeth and the grantfunder was defrauded when she was told that the program sold to her was acceptable to the

Board of Architecture and Interior Design.

I believe that there is at least a potential for fraud in several respects given the sloppy manner in

which the funding seems to be shoveled out, perhaps with all good intent; therefore I have filed a

formal inquiry with the state’s Office of Inspector General within the Agency for WorkforceInnovation, asking for an acknowledgement of the inquiry; no such acknowledgement has been

forthcoming. South Florida Workforce Executive Director Rick Beasley has not been responsive

to my requests to examine Elizabeth’s file, which seems to have gone missing after I queried himon the matter, so there are simply not enough facts available to allege fraud. And fraud was




~ 6 ~

suspected when he stonewalled Elizabeth and this reporter. Perhaps there was no fraud, but

sloppy practices evidently open up the system for fraud

Fraud or not, all is not lost, at least not for Elizabeth, if she has enough experience in the field

and the number of hours of education that might move the Board to take a look at her background and provide her with an opportunity to take the exam. After trying to communicate

with many people who did not actually read Elizabeth’s 25 August 2010 letter or who said they

read it but did not understand what the problem was although it was laid out in plain English, Ifinally reached someone who is not only knowledgeable but is also helpful instead of defensive:

namely, Terri McEwen Estes at the Florida Board of Architecture and Interior Design.

Ms. Estes said that the objective of the Board is to help qualified interior designers get a license.

She noted that the Board regularly receives calls from students asking if Miami Dade College

interior design curricula suffice to meet the Board’s education prerequisite. Since the college for

some reason has not asked for approval of its interior design curricula by the Board, the Boardwill treat its curricula as it would those from other unapproved institutions including out-of-state

colleges. The governing statute provides that the Board may accept interior design curricula not

approved in advance providing that other statutory requirements are met. Hence there is noadvance guarantee that the Board will accept the Miami Dade College interior design degrees,

which is something the student might want to consider.

There is also a statutory provision that might be of avail to Elizabeth although she did not

graduate from Miami Dade College, providing she has a certain number of years of experience

and a certain number of hours of education, all subject to approval by the Board. Now that

sounds reasonable; otherwise, what is a perfectly competent interior designer who wants toestablish herself in Florida do? Should she pull out and establish herself in one of the 47 states

that does not require interior design licensure? No doubt Elizabeth, who has many years ofinterior design experience and many hours of education in the finest schools, will be glad to hear

about that provision on her return to the United States.

Ms. Estes noted that misinformation often circulates among the student body. I suggested that

someone on the Board take a look at the Miami Mirror investigative file, and clear up that

confusion wherever it originates, say, staff at Workforce and the college.

I mentioned that I was in contact with several communications experts who were in the dark

about what was going on in respect to the Workforce-College programs, at least in respect tointerior design, and that perhaps they could get their heads together and make sure everyone

concerned, including the Workforce sales partners of the colleges, was properly educated as to

the facts so no innocent or negligent representations would be made to potential students. She

offered to forward my suggestion to the Board’s media contact officer.

XYX




~ 1 ~


Republication of 2005 Guerilla Journalist Notes

SOUTH BEACH ONE-STOP CENTER IGNORES DISPLACED CITIZENSOr provides them with misinformation

Filed June 29, 2005By David Arthur WaltersThe Miami Mirror


I observed Ben, who identified himself as Senior Job Placement Specialist at the South Beach

One-Stop center, interviewing a man whom I recognized from the street: he was a recoveringalcoholic. The man soon walked away with a disappointed expression. I approached Ben andinquired about services available to displaced persons i.e. the homeless. I described a displacedman who asked me for money on Alton Road the previous day; to wit:

The displaced man was handsome although grubby; a Caucasian; Thirty-Something - the idealAmerican age. He was carrying a large clear plastic envelope containing his resume and photographs of himself as a head cook or chef at a previous job. He was very proud of the photo.He said he had lost his job and had run out of money while looking for another one. He had no place to keep his clothes, and wound up with what he had on his back, ruined from sleeping inalleys and under a pier. He did not have an address or a telephone number where employers

could contact him.

The poor man did not know where to apply for a food stamp card and small cash allowance, so Igave him that information, saying he should not be too proud to accept assistance from the stateas that would be better than stealing or robbing; after all, he had just asked me for money – I wasactually assuring myself, for I grew up where it was once considered better to rob a train or a bank than ask for help from the guv'ment.

I told the man that he should also go to the One-Stop Center at 833 Sixth Street and inquire aboutwork, mentioning that I had seen an ad for a food service manager paying $ 20 per hour. I alsosuggested that he ask for information as to where he could get some clothes, and about where he

could get an address and telephone number for purposes of seeking employment.

"Once a person is on the street like that, that's it, there is no chance of getting work," Ben said,after I related my story.

"Surely," I said, "there must be sufficient support for job-seeking available to such persons,otherwise they are doomed. In Kansas City, for example, there are places where displaced




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persons can get clothes, showers, a locker to keep things in, access to a telephone and voicemail -accessible from pay phones - and a mailing address."

"Miami isn't like that," Ben said. "People with that lifestyle won't get help."

"What if they don't want to live like that?" I asked. "Do you mean Miami, with all its riches, willnot help people who fall through the cracks? Surely there must be sufficient support for job-seeking available to such persons, otherwise they are doomed. I saw places in Kansas City wheredisplaced persons can get clothes, showers, a locker to keep things in, access to a telephone andvoicemail, accessible from pay phones, and a mailing address.”

"There are shelters," he replied, "but a person only gets one chance, and if he messes up anddoesn't change his lifestyle, he won't be helped again."

Ben did not seem to know much about the local social issues or about the United States for thatmatter; e.g. he did not know that Hawaii is a state. An informant in the office mentioned that

several employees in the Miami Beach One-Stop center “are waiting for their papers,” and thatone of the main missions of the staff is to help immigrants get established. The informantdescribed a pecking order in the office, with Cuban Americans at the top, and said that a non- profit outfit called Unidad Miami Beach Hispanic Community Center manages the One-Stop.This informant said that a local Cuban American politician, Matti Bower, was a powerful forceat Unidad.

Ben has a reputation for being "independent" and "honest." He is a nice fellow, very bright to boot, and has a reputation for independence and honesty. He likes to hand out positive mentalattitude flyers around the office. He seems a bit brainwashed in favor of capital although he professes sympathy with labor, provided it helps itself. I asked him if he was making $ 10 perhour at the employment office, since the competition for that wage is stiff around the One-Stop.“No,” he said, “a little more than that.”

A supervisor, who had become suspicious of me during the course of my guerilla interviews,noticed that I was conversing with Ben. She rudely interrupted my interview, sending Ben off ona mission. I later asked him for his card; he scratched the name off someone else's card, wrote'Ben' above it, and handed it to me.

Ben is in training, and was evidently not yet trained very well on some subjects. I took up thematter with Omar, Employer Consultant, and recounted what I had been told about the slimchances of displaced persons getting a hand up so they can find work.

"Who told you that? That's nonsense," Omar said irritably. He reached into a folder, pulled outfour sheets of paper with information on services available and thrust them into my hand. The pages had been duplicated so many times they were barely legible:

Assistance with food, shelter, utility bills, clothing, and health care might be obtained at various places. However, I discovered that the information was outdated as many of the employment




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office's job listings – I heard many people at One-Stop centers complain about stale and boguslistings.

The information sheet on home-energy assistance bore a handwritten note, "until 8-28-2003"; thesheet on one-time emergency cash assistance bore a handwritten note, "No more funds, Marilyn,

4/14/02," and another note at the bottom, "Only for those do not Qualify for other programs"(sic) without mentioning what those other programs might be.

Another page listed only three community shelters for men - one of them closed on weekends.Two of the shelters listed are on 1st Avenue, where travelers are treated to the sight of over ahundred indigent people stretched out on the sidewalks with their belongings on any given day.The remaining page duplicated information on shelters and provided information on institutionsand agencies providing assistance for substance abuse, mental and physical health, and just plainhelp. Much of the assistance was no longer available.

The information obviously needed to be updated and consolidated with all other information on

services available, published in an alphabetical directory indexed by services available, anddistributed to everyone concerned, especially to those in need. Certain portions of theinformation should be printed in the form of small flyers or cards for handing out to indigent people there and on the street.

I was informed by another insider that the highly paid South Florida Workforce administrationmakes all sorts of excuses including budgetary excuses for not making corrections andimproving services to the poor.

The One-Stop center’s outdated handouts did not include a reference to the CommunityPartnership For Homeless, Inc. (CPHI) 1550 North Miami Avenue, Miami Florida 33136, Tel.305.329.3000. I found out about CPHI while waiting for the Metro Mover at the GovernmentCenter train station in downtown Miami. A well dressed African American woman carrying a briefcase asked me for directions – she said was going to a job interview. I chatted with her afterwe got on the train - the usual small talk. Lea is her name.

"So how long will it take you to get home if you get the job downtown?" I asked.

"I'm homeless," said Lea pleasantly.

"What?"

"I'm homeless. I was laid off my public services job two months ago."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"No need to be sorry. I'm O.K. I'll get another job."

"You don't look homeless. Where do you stay?"




"Close to the School Board station," she said.

“You are not dressed like them,” I nodded towards the unkempt men at the end of the car whowere cursing and drinking from a bottle of wine.

"There's no need to look down and out. We have showers and good clothes."

"What about a phone number for your resume? And the bus fare?"

"An employer can call my social worker, and I can get tokens to go on interviews," she said.

"Aren't you afraid? Isn't the shelter bad?"

"No, I'm not afraid. I'll be all right. The shelter is safe - there is plenty of security."

"I see people wandering around in the streets without any place to go to. They look awful. Some

say they want jobs."

"There's no excuse for that," Lea shook her head. "There's a place to go. There are services. Youcan get calls, get mail, get clothes, and job leads too."

"Where?" I asked.

Lea opened her purse, pulled out a CHPI card and handed it to me.

"Keep it," she said, smiling. "And thank you. I enjoyed talking with you."

Editor’s Note:

The above article was prepared in 2005 from notes taken in 2005 and published on the Internetwith links sent to member of South Florida Workforce staff. The new South Florida WorkforceInvestment Board executive director, Rick Beasley, was hired that year. Whether or not theissues raised above and in other articles were adequately addressed by him and his staff is presently under investigation. The executive director and staff members of “South FloridaWorkforce,” a fictitious name for the government board called the South Florida WorkforceInvestment Board, are actually employees of Miami-Dade County according to an InterlocalAgreement between Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties, adopted by Miami-Dade CountyCommission Resolution dated March 7, 2006. Several staff members, some of them highly placed, have anonymously expressed dismay with Mr. Beasley’s policies; their allegations will be inquired into. The local and state structure of the Workforce system implements the federalWorkforce Investment Act of 1998, which will soon be due for reenactment. Therefore the issuesare of national import, and readers are invited to comment on their positive and negativeexperiences at One Stop centers throughout Florida and the nation (November 06 2010)

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