Federal stimulus money increased the board’s funding from less than $3 million in 2008 to about $5 million this year, the highest mark since it began operating in 2000.
That has helped it coordinate more than a dozen stimulus-funded projects, ranging from training for potential electrical workers to consulting to help manufacturing companies prevent layoffs.
In the meantime, demand for help at the Verdugo Jobs Center has skyrocketed, from an average of about 4,000 monthly visitors seeking résumé help and employment counseling to more than 9,000 monthly.
“One quarter of the year has gone by, and we’ve had almost 50% of our plan [for annual visitors],” said Richard Roche, chairman of the board, referring to the start of the organization’s fiscal year in July. “So the need is great.”
The increased strain on the organization has filled the job center with about 500 inquiries daily for a 40-person staff that had not grown since the recession started.
It added one position in the last month and is in the process of hiring at least four additional workers to help meet the needs of the community, Nakamoto said.
The board, one of California’s 49 workforce investment boards created under the federal Workforce Investment Act of 1998, will be able to continue funding projects using stimulus grants until they expire in 2011, but after that will need to turn elsewhere for help, he said.
“We don’t know what the federal government, our main source of income, is going to look like down the road,” he said.
Competitive grants will become major resources for the organization, although many require the applicants to take advantage of matching funds, which the board has exhausted, he said.
