CLEARFIELD — A cutback in federal spending for select Job Corps centers is expected to reduce the enrollment at the Clearfield Job Corps by as many as 400 students, a Department of Labor official confirmed Wednesday.
The Clearfield facility is one of seven Job Corps centers in the U.S. where funding will be cut on a temporary basis until at least June of this year, according to Elizabeth Todd, a regional spokesman for the DOL based in Dallas.
The announcement amounts to a loss of 400 slots, or potential applications, for students, Todd said.
The Davis County facility has 1,057 students, said Issa Arnita, director of corporate communications for the Management & Training Corporation.
Todd could not specify how much funding would be cut to the facility, but said the move is part of a cost-saving approach by the Job Employment Training Administration, which is a division of the DOL.
The Jobs Corps facility in Weber County will not be affected by the cutbacks.
Todd said federal officials looked at a number of factors, including student population, how many students came from out of state and transportation costs before announcing the cuts.
The Clearfield facility is managed by Management & Training Corporation in Centerville and is one of 18 MTC-operated centers and three subcontract centers in the country. MTC contracts with the DOL to operate the centers.
Arnita said local officials have only been notified of the cuts and are waiting to finalize any response — from possible staff cuts to loss of students — after talking with DOL officials. He termed the Clearfield facility as one of the top Jobs Corps centers in the U.S.
Located on 80 acres of land adjacent to the Freeport Center, the local Job Corps campus is the third-largest in the nation.
Focused on helping economically disadvantaged youths, Job Corps was started in 1964 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war on poverty. The program serves as many as 65,000 students a year.
The Clearfield facility claims its graduation rate and average starting wage for graduates exceeds the national average. The local Job Corps provides training annually to more than 1,400 youths, ages 16-24, and provides training in a number of areas, ranging from composites and computer technology to office administration, network cabling and welding.
Of 125 job centers in the U.S, the local facility ranked No. 17 in awarding industry-recognized credentials and No. 18 in the number of GEDs/high school diplomas awarded.
MTC is the largest Job Corps contractor for the DOL. The Utah-based company operates centers in 15 states and claims to train as many as 16,000 students annually at its facilities. Arnita said the potential cuts could also have an impact on three other MTC facilities in the U.S.
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