Workforce Investment Act programming to transfer from CMCA to northeast Missouri-based Gamm, Incorporated

Program helps build skills, find employment for workers in Callaway, surrounding counties

A federal program designed to partner adults, displaced workers and youth with employers in Callaway County and mid-Missouri will change hands from the local Central Missouri Community Action to northeast Missouri-based Gamm, Incorporated in July.

CMCA Executive Director Darin Preis said local implementations of the Workforce Investment Act had been coordinated by CMCA for two decades.

The WIA a program designed to allow state and local officials to establish programs using federal funds to allow adults, workers dislocated by layoffs or youth to develop job skills and find work.

However, the Central Region Workforce Investment Board - the group in charge of oversight of the program in Audrain, Boone, Callaway, Camden, Cole, Cooper, Crawford, Dent, Gasconade, Howard, Laclede, Maries, Miller, Moniteau, Morgan, Osage, Phelps, Pulaski and Washington counties - elected to contract Gamm over CMCA to implement WIA programs for adults.

"They sent us a letter giving us the news, and said we weren't competitive and that we were applying for the same things that we'd already been doing," Preis said. "We had the program just shy of 20 years and it went out for bid again this year, and we were not awarded the contract."

To help the tornado-stricken people of Dumas and surroundings, donations can be made to the Delta Area Disaster Relief Fund, care of the Delta Area Community Foundation, P.O. Box 894, Dumas, AR, 71639, or through the Arkansas Community Foundation, 700 S. Rock St., Little Rock, AR, 72202.