The Northern Rhode Island Private Industry Council ran up a $1.2 million deficit before state officials pulled the plug on the agency in April, according to audit results released by the General Assembly last week. The audit concluded that the nonprofit council lost $803,000 last year and $395,000 through April this year, before the state Department of Labor and Training took over control of programs operated by the financially troubled agency.
The council had been charged with training hundreds of unemployed people in northern Rhode Island. That work since has been assumed by The Greater Rhode Island Private Industry Council, said Lee Arnold, director of the state Department of Training and Labor.
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Arnold said some of the defunct agency’s staff had been hired by the Greater Rhode Island Private Industry Council to ensure continuity in the job training programs in the northern part of the state.
The Human Resource Investment Council, an autonomous body that oversees job training programs in the state, has set aside $350,000 to pay the defunct agency’s job training contractors and allow people enrolled in such programs to continue their training.
”These are people who were in job training programs and should not have been victimized by the closing of this council,” Arnold said.
The Human Resource Investment Council so far has paid out $157,000 to contractors who had provided job training and $79,000 to continue training for people enrolled in programs when the agency closed.
“We do have things back on track in that sense,” Arnold said.
A court-appointed receiver is handling claims against the agency from other creditors.
The state audit also found that the council’s administrative expenses exceeded federal grant limitations by more than $112,500 in fiscal 1999 and by $212,500 in fiscal 1998.
