A Hartford state senator said Monday that the hiring of the children of many government officials for summer jobs at state agencies has denied opportunities to urban teenagers and the state should consider creating a lottery system similar to New York City's.
"Too many young people residing in our cities, especially those of African American and Latino backgrounds, lack the family or friend connections that so many from more affluent backgrounds enjoy," Sen. John Fonfara, D-Hartford, said Monday.
He said he had emailed his concerns to fellow Hartford legislators and to Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn. Fonfara, who is co-chairman of the legislature's finance committee, said he was responding to disclosures in two recent "Government Watch" columns in The Courant.
A July 14 column reported that three of the state economic development agency's 17 summer jobs went to young relatives of agency officials. One official sat in on the job interview of her own daughter. Although seven of the 17 jobs are in Hartford offices, none of them went to a young person from Hartford.
At the state Department of Transportation, 29 of the 56 summer workers have the same last name as a full-time DOT worker or official.
"I would like to see how the lottery works," said Fonfara. He said he would have a legislative staff member obtain information about the New York program, which is the largest of several around the country, and research the possibility of legislation to adopt a lottery for filling summer jobs on the state payroll.
New York City's Summer Youth Employment Program has used a lottery since the 1990s to ensure fairness in hiring; it filled 35,000 jobs from 135,000 applications with the lottery this year.
This year, the DOT posted its summer jobs on a state website, and the Department of Economic and Community Development recruited a number of candidates at "job fairs" at three colleges, in Danbury, New London and Fairfield. But Fonfara said more effort is needed to inform and attract young people from cities who do not have the same opportunities as many of those who got the jobs.
For example, he questioned why no effort was made to put out the word at Capital Community College in downtown Hartford. "A huge percentage of Hartford kids go to Capital Community College," Fonfara said. "There should be an aggressive effort to inform young people about the opportunity and that they can get an equal shot at it."
"As a legislator representing the poorest city in Connecticut, to learn that not one Hartford youth was hired [at DECD] following a job fair is disappointing on its own, but to learn that over half of the summer hires [at DOT] have the same last names as current employees is even more troubling," he said.
Fonfara said he's not naive about family connections helping people to get jobs. "I get that. It happens everywhere," he said, giving the example of a son who gets an advantage in admission at the college his father went to. "I get all of that. ? But there has to be opportunity to break that [tradition] for those families that didn't have that opportunity and where there isn't that history of success educationally or in the workplace."
As summer jobs go, the ones at issue pay well. At the DECD's "Welcome Centers" on interstate highways, for example, the pay is $12 an hour and $14 an hour ? either $960 or $1,120 every two weeks.
"Such a good summer job ? opens up a world that a lot of my constituents don't experience," Fonfara said. "It's one of those jobs where you meet some people who say, 'Hey, come back next year,' or 'You go to college ? and you can get a job here when you come back.' This is the way it works in the real world. It's connections, and it's relationships, and, for many people, that's how they walk through the door of opportunity."
If an urban youth doesn't have a parent with connections, and "if you live in a neighborhood where the unemployment rate is 30 percent or better, you're just not going to see those opportunities," Fonfara said. "I feel really strongly that at the government level, at least, there ought to be some policy that attempts to reach out to these neighborhoods ? not just in Hartford, but throughout the state."
ben affleck doctor who powerball Preakness 2013 beyonce lottery Preakness results
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন