The Education and Workforce Development Cabinet is consolidating career centers across Kentucky in an effort to save millions of dollars.
The state has 51 offices that provide assistance with unemployment benefits, worker training, and job placements. Under a reorganization, the career centers will be reduced to 12 hubs, including Bowling Green, Covington, Elizabethtown, Hazard, Hopkinsville, Lexington, Louisville, Morehead, Owensboro, Paducah, Prestonsburg and Somerset. Eight existing satellite offices will also remain.
Office of Employment Training Spokeswoman Kim Brannock says the goal is to make services more flexible by offering in-person assistance at one of the hubs, as well as over the phone and online.
"Also, in the future, the model that we're going toward, may have an employee from one of these hubs that will go to one of these satellite location maybe once a week if they're needed and help people face to face," Brannock told WKU Public Radio. "We're trying to go from bricks and mortar to more of helping people through technology and helping them to have services whenever they want it, 24/7."
The 31 affected career centers won’t close, but will be supported by community partners who may be able to provide limited assistance with unemployment and career help. The centers will maintain other services such as the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation and the Office for the Blind.
Ninety-five employees in the Office of Employment and Training will be transferred to other positions within the Cabinet or elsewhere in state government.
Brannock says the move will not only streamline services, but balance a shortfall in federal funding. The Office of Employment and Training had a $4.6 million deficit in fiscal year 2016.