Court Opinion

ID: 9473919
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:43:39.760716+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:49.156366
License: Public Domain

COFFEY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the majority’s well-reasoned analysis that the 120-day time limit set forth in 29 U.S.C. § 816(b) is not a jurisdictional bar to actions taken by the Secretary of Labor after expiration of the 120-day time limit. I further concur in Sections IV, V, and VI of the opinion. However, I am unable to agree with the majority’s resolution of the alleged “Maintenance of Ef*999forts” violations discussed in Section III of the opinion. Although I agree that the' majority is correct in using 1976 as the “benchmark” for purposes of analyzing whether or not there has been a “Maintenance of Efforts” by county officials in funding the local job training programs, I cannot agree that the County should be liable for the entire amount of the “shortfall” in funding since the County enacted cost-saving measures in 1977 that explains, in part, why their funding in 1977 did not match their spending efforts in 1976. Thus, I would remand this case to the administrative law judge for an accurate determination of the “shortfall” in local funding.
As set forth in the majority opinion, the non-federal funding of the local job training program for the general welfare recipients from 1976 through 1978, (the years in question) was $3,014,580 in 1976, $2,097,-428 in 1977, and $2,732,487 in 1978.1 In 1977, CETA began to fund various job training programs for general welfare recipients in Milwaukee County, budgeting approximately $1 million in 1977 for the LTE program and approximately $2.4 million for the HSH program from July 1, 1977 to June 30, 1978.
These programs, local and CETA, were geared toward training general assistance welfare recipients for future employment in the private sector.
Congress in enacting the CETA program sought to create new employment and training opportunities for welfare recipients. See 20 C.F.R. § 675.1(a) (1979). In order to ensure that CETA funds were not used to replace local funding, Congress promulgated rules prohibiting “the substitution of Federal funds for other funds in connection with work that would otherwise be performed” by local government entities and providing for annual audits conducted by the Secretary of Labor. See, e.g., 29 U.S.C. § 845(c)(a)(25) (1976); 29 U.S.C. § 848(a)(1) (1976); 29 C.F.R. § 99.34(b)(3). In this manner, Congress sought to ensure that local communities maintain their effort in providing job training programs when the CETA funding became available. The majority chooses the funding level provided in 1976 as the “benchmark” or focal point to determine if Milwaukee County maintained their funding of local job training programs once CETA funds became available. It is proper to use 1976 as the focal point for purposes of comparison since 1976 is the year prior to CETA funds becoming available for job training programs for the general welfare assistance population in Milwaukee County. In 1976, the level of non-federal spending was $3,014,-580, while in 1977, the' year CETA funds became available, the non-federal funding dropped to $2,097,428, and rose slightly in 1978 to $2,732,487. However, based upon these figures alone, the majority concludes that there was a “shortfall” in the effort by the County to train workers under its programs. The majority agrees with the ALJ’s finding that the County is responsible for the entire difference in funding, totaling $1,199,245; but the majority fails to consider much less weigh any information as to how and why these figures necessarily differ.
At least as a starting point for the purpose of analysis in establishing whether or not the County had maintained its efforts in the local job-training programs, it is proper to compare the level of spending between the years 1976, 1977 and 1978, and assessing the County $1,199,245 for the alleged CETA violation would be appropriate if the County was in fact unable to explain the reduced funding in its local program. However, for some unknown reason, the ALJ and now the majority fail to consider that the County, beginning in late 1976 and through 1977, instituted cost-saving measures in its local job-training program when it reduced the workers’ wages and hours, and thus the majority *1000and the AU disregard the County’s sincere efforts to operate the most cost-efficient program possible. Specifically, relying on National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833, 96 S.Ct. 2465, 49 L.Ed.2d 245 (1976), overruled Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, — U.S. ---, 105 S.Ct. 1005, 83 L.Ed.2d 1016 (1985), the County reduced the wages and cut the hours of participants in its job training programs in an honest attempt to save taxpayers some expense in providing these programs. As the majority notes, these cost-saving measures saved the County approximately $850,000 in 1977 and as the majority admits, this figure represents 93 percent of the shortfall in funding during 1977. However, the majority refuses to take this into account in computing the potential liability of the County, and instead applies a simplistic analysis using only the gross funding figures without any inquiry whatsoever into the number of workers employed in the locally funded programs during the years in controversy, 1976 through 1978. This analysis penalizes the County for instituting cost-saving measures to save taxpayer’s hard-earned dollars. The majority boldly asserts that “the proper response to the wage and hour reduction after National League of Cities would have been the creation of more PFWP positions ____” Thus, the majority’s position is that the only way the County could avoid liability was to have increased its efforts in training more general assistance welfare recipients than it was training in the previous year. But this position does not espouse a maintenance of effort, consistent with the requirement that federal funds not be substituted for work that “would otherwise be performed” by the County, rather it requires the County to have increased its job training efforts with the employment of more workers and to have spent funds at previous year’s levels regardless of whether or not it was the most cost-efficient use of taxpayer dollars. The County, on the other hand, logically argues that it maintained its efforts in training general welfare recipients in not transferring any workers employed in the PWFP program to the CETA funded programs and in replacing those workers who left the local program, after their training was completed, with persons on the waiting list. Because the AU failed to make specific findings as to the number of welfare recipients employed in the program at any given time this case must in all fairness be remanded to the trier of fact to complete the record for proper review. Nevertheless, the majority penalizes the County for enacting cost-saving measures when it adopts the position that the County, with the savings accumulated through pay-cuts, was required to use the savings to employ more general assistance welfare recipients in its own program. The majority fails to cite, nor could I discover, any case law to support this gratuitous theory of federal meddling in a local budgetary decision.
Because the record before us is sparse and unclear as to the number of workers actually employed in the County job-training programs for the years in question, see majority n. 11,2 this case should be returned to the AU to determine what portion of the County’s “shortfall” in funding is explained by the County’s legitimate cost-saving measures. Further, the AU should determine whether the County, in instituting the reduced wages and shorter hours, was able to employ more trainees or employ persons in the program for a longer period of time; thus, enabling these persons to gain more experience and remain off the assistance roles. I am convinced that in fairness to the community which implemented cost-saving measures to benefit its taxpayers, that the community should not be responsible for reimbursing the federal government for any amount of money resulting from these cost-saving efforts. In this era of reductions in government deficit spending and increased government economy caused by bureau*1001cratic mismanagement of the past, the majority decision penalizes a community that effectuated cost-saving and cost-efficient programs for the benefit of the welfare recipients and the taxpayers as well.
Thus, I respectfully dissent from Section III of the opinion.

. In 1978, the County’s job training program, PWFP, was eliminated; the County established a job-training program entitled the Work Assistance Program ("WAP”), that was funded by the County and the State in the amount of $2,732,-487. CETA’s contribution to the WAP program was approximately $200,000.

. The record contains evidence that the number of workers employed in PWFP ranged anywhere from 250 to 682 toward the end of 1977.