Sometimes rules written to make life difficult for cheaters hinders those they're designed to help, especially when those who enforce the rules had a hand in having someone else break them. Such is the case with many furloughed ConAgra workers trying to get on with their lives. At the urging of many social service agencies, including unemployment officials, the Finney County Learning Center added more English classes in the wake of the massive fire that shuttered the plant on Christmas night. Many workers who struggle with English needed the additional training to help as they went about filling out paperwork to receive, among other things, unemployment benefits, or to look for new jobs. But when they attended the classes they were told they were jeopardizing their unemployment benefits.
Unemployed people can receive benefits and take short-term classes of a technical nature.
The rules are in place to prevent full-time students from claiming benefits they're not entitled to. The rules assume those enrolled in academic classes would be in school when they should be out looking for work. That makes sense. Language courses, state officials temporarily halted benefits. In obliging, the Learning Center unwittingly played a role in delaying benefit payments to the people unemployment officials said needed the help.