LePage pushes for control of job training funds. Agencies say that's illegal.

First, he wanted to merge them. Then he blocked their funding.

Now, Gov. Paul LePage wants to dictate how three regional job training boards spend nearly three quarters of the millions in federal funds they receive to provide job training to laid-off workers, low-income adults, people recently released from prison and struggling young adults.

The change would be catastrophic for the training boards, according to the officials who run them, causing them to dramatically cut staff and ignore people with disabilities and other barriers to employment. Those shortcomings would cause them to lose certification under the rules of the federal program that funds them, the officials say.

“They passed a policy that they knew we couldn’t comply with, and what they set in front of us is a landmine,” said Antoinette Mancusi, deputy director of Coastal Counties Workforce Inc., which serves six southern Maine and midcoast counties.

Read more: http://www.journaltribune.com/news/2018-03-21/State%7CRegional/LePage_pushes_for_control_of_job_training_funds_Ag.html