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The Wake County Work Force Development
Board terminated its contract for the
HopeBuilders program with the DuBois
Center effective the end of April
because, Director Regina Crooms said
this week, “They don’t have the
infrastructure. There’s nobody there.”
The program will be operated
through the end of July, when the
contract ends, by the W.E.B. DuBois
Community Development Corporation.
However, Crooms said she is still
working out a contract with the CDC. The
staff at the CDC, who were at the center
until the end of February, developed and
have been running the program for young
people between 17 and 21 who are out of
school or unemployed.
Beginning in August, some
other group will be in charge of
HopeBuilders, Crooms said, because the
CDC was late in delivering its contract
proposal for the coming year.
Crooms said she had tried to
reach an arrangement whereby the DuBois
Center subcontracted with the DuBois CDC
to operate the program this contract
year, but, “We couldn’t come to an
agreement.”
George C. Jones Sr., the
interim director at the DuBois Center,
said the situation was different. “The
county refused to work with us.” Jones
said there may be some legal issues
about the termination. “I’ll leave that
to the board to decide,” apparently
referring to the board of directors of
the National Alumni Association of
DuBois High School.
When asked if the contract
was terminated because he and the
association did not pay the HopeBuilders
staff and the young people who work 20
hours a week as interns, Jones said, “I
don’t think that was the problem. You
can’t just take folk away. That’s
coercion. I think I’m right, according
to some legal folks.”
The DuBois CDC has found
funds to pay the HopeBuilders staff and
interns their back wages, but Director
Emma Watkins said she and others are
still dealing with overdrafts and late
payment fees incurred because they were
not paid for several weeks.
The contract for
HopeBuilders is on a cost-reimbursement
basis, Crooms said. “When we get
anything that’s time to be paid, we do.”
Apparently Jones never submitted the
requests for payment for the wages.
The North Carolina
Department of Labor investigation
includes the lack of payments for
HopeBuilders. |
