Book Description

The Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act and the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) contain several inconsistent fiscal and legal requirements. The federal legal framework governing expenditure of funds under the Perkins Act and JTPA is voluminous and cumbersome, but no effort has been undertaken to maintain a coherent legal resource covering both programs. Increased interaction between the two programs in the delivery of services to the disadvantaged is inhibited due to conflicting rules on matching, inconsistent definitions of "disadvantaged," excess costs requirements, and dissimilarity in audit resolution procedures. Recommendations include development of a resource guide cross-referencing all legal requirements in each program; publication of all new policies in the Federal Register; Congress's reconsideration of the need for the 50-50 match in the Perkins Act; a common definition of "disadvantaged" in both programs; and the elimination of the excess cost limitation. (Appendixes include departmental rulings on audit exceptions and a computation of the comments received on the monograph from State Directors of Vocational Education and Governors' JTPA liaisons.) (YLB).