[Ohio-talk] Trump's hiring freeze halts IRS job training programs for students at World Services for the Blind in Little Rock

[Suzanne Turner]

Please do not respond or post your emotions on this list serve.  This is
only informational. If President, Mark Riccobono of the NFB has concerns, we
will follow his lead.  Please take necessary action on your own if you have
"strong feelings" about this subject.

 

Trump's hiring freeze halts IRS job training programs for students at World
Services for the Blind in Little Rock 

Posted By David Ramsey
<http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/ArticleArchives?author=861944>  

on Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 5:37 PM 

click to enlarge
<https://media2.fdncms.com/arktimes/imager/u/original/4818793/blind.png>  

Ten students who are blind or visually impaired were preparing to interview
for federal jobs last week, as part of job training program with the World
Services for the Blind, when word came that President Trump's 90-day hiring
freeze on civilian federal workers would put the program on the chopping
block and those students in limbo. WSB, the Little Rock-based nonprofit, has
had to suspend its IRS-job-training program because of Trump's
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/23/trump-freezes-f
ederal-hiring/?utm_term=.4d33a2fe19a2>  executive order. The program, part
of a 50-year partnership with the IRS, provides intensive training for blind
or visually impaired people to work in a variety of positions within the
federal agency. Participants in the program were guaranteed jobs upon
successful completion.  

 

The ten students immediately affected were in their third week of a
four-week evaluation, preparing to interview for the Taxpayer Services
Representative program. If accepted, they then would have begun a 13-week
training program, before being hired by the IRS. The students, from across
the country, came to Little Rock for the program. WSB is aiming to refer
them to other job-training programs that they offer (however, none of these
other programs has a guaranteed job at the end like the IRS program). "Last
week was one of the hardest weeks of my 17 months at WSB," said Sharon
Giovinazzo, president and CEO of the organization, in a statement. "Standing
before these 10 people and having to tell them that because of the hiring
freeze they would not have a class was devastating."  Though the hiring
freeze is 90 days, the impacts of the executive order will in practice last
much longer and impact future programs as well, said Giovinazzo (this has to
do with the order's timeline for reevaluating certain exemptions allowing
preferential hiring for people with disabilities). Another IRS job training
program, the Service Center Collection Representative Program, scheduled for
summer 2017, may also have to be cancelled. 

 

My father trained blind students for these jobs at WSB (then known as AR
Enterprises for the Blind) for ten years after he retired from the IRS. That
program was and is the difference between being meaningfully employed and
being dependent on government support. So this part of the hiring freeze
will actually cost taxpayers MORE.,

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