There is not a kid out there who needs eye glasses

Cleveland Job Corps program troubled

The Cleveland Job Corps Academy opened in November 2007 with high expectations and a mission to educate, train, house and find jobs for troubled teens and young adults. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, who toured the $35 million, 25 acre campus in Collinwood six months later and boasted it "will help so many young people find hope and opportunity."

But a Plain Dealer investigation has found that the academy is in turmoil.

The investigation, begun last spring and based on interviews with current and former Job Corps workers, public records and inteal documents obtained by the paper, revealed:

Applied Technology Systems cheap fake oakleys Inc., the Cleveland based company that is paid millions of tax dollars a year to run the federal program, has failed to pay bills, at times leaving students without properly maintained fire alarms, medical services, uniforms and other supplies.

Unruly students have been accused of numerous crimes, including fighting with neighborhood gang members, assaulting other students, http://www.shrachi.com/pdf.html stealing, and possessing drugs and knives. The crimes and behavior problems have disrupted leaing, promoted fear on campus led to low morale and staff tuover, according to former employees and documents.

ATSI often tolerated bad behavior and passed poorly performing students to meet contract and financial goals, former employees charge.

ATSI overcharged the govement $1.8 million for overhead expenses related to its federal contracts, including Cleveland's, a recent federal audit found.

Job Corps officials in Chicago, who are charged with monitoring the Cleveland program, have been lax in their oversight, the audit shows.

The head of ATSI acknowledged some billing mistakes were made but defended the academy, noting that it has received high marks for performance compared to other programs in the country and serves its students well.

Company struggles to pay bills for student services: The Cleveland Job Corps campus sits on land along Coit Rd. once occupied by the General Motors Fisher Body complex. The campus includes three dorms, a recreation building, cafeteria, construction trades shops, medical building and administrative offices separated fake cheap oakleys by winding concrete sidewalks and green lawns.

Typically, about 400 teens and young adults are enrolled in the program. Most are black, from Ohio, and left or were kicked out of traditional schools.

ATSI manages nearly every aspect of their lives, from their fake oakleys cheap meals, school work and inteships to their clothes, travel, transportation, play and health and safety.

But ATSI fake oakleys outle has struggled at times to juggle these responsibilities.

ATSI sometimes fell behind on bills, which left the campus without services, from student uniforms and office and school supplies to more critical ones such as medical waste pick up and fire alarm maintenance.

Frank Frizell, owner of the Cleveland based National Firesafety Systems Inc., says ATSI has missed monthly payments, delaying alarm maintenance.

"This is life safety," Frizell said.

Judile Jefferies, a former secretary for five years at the academy health clinic, said other bills went unpaid.

After ATSI failed to pay its medical waste collection company in late 2009, she said she found collection boxes including needles and soiled supplies used to conduct pap smears and other tests in a closet stacked to the ceiling.

The health center delayed taking care of students seeking eye exams and glasses because ATSI failed to pay the eye care provider, Jefferies says.

ATSI fired Jefferies in May 2010. Jefferies said she received a memo blaming her for failing to process medical invoices between 2006 and 2009. She said she opened mail, time stamped invoices and passed them to a supervisor. She said she was not responsible for the unpaid bills.

Clark Hayes, owner and chief executive officer of ATSI, told The Plain Dealer in an interview Thursday that slow reimbursements from fake cheap oakleys the govement are to blame for his cash flow problems. Federal documents show ATSI has received more than $55 million since 2005.

Hayes said he's missed bills totaling about $200,000, a small amount compared to the bills he's paid on time. He insisted that no students have gone without cheap fake oakleys services.

" that doesn't have cheap oakleys them," he said.

The audit does not address whether ATSI paid its vendors on time, but points to problems within http://www.cheryldellasega.com/bios/ ATSI's finance department. The audit says the company failed to submit paperwork spelling out its proposed expenses.

Specifically, ATSI charged the govement for payments Hayes made to buy fake oakleys out former owners of the company in 2005, the audit says. These payments, totaling about $430,000, were listed as "consulting services" that were never documented, the audit says.