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Tampa Bay Workforce Alliance squandering tax dollars (2011) 1 wtsp.com 12/16/18, 2:07 PM Peachey blamed any oversights on Workforce's contract company, ResCare, which ran the agency from mid -2010 to mid -2012 after the spending scandal. Yet when Peachey started hiring employees back under the Workforce umbrella this summer, he says almost all of the ResCare employees were retained. Regional workforce boards like Tampa Say Workforce play pivotal roles in helping Floridians get back to work. They oversee Florida's One -Stop Career Centers, and are responsible for distributing federal funds designated for unemployed, under -employed, and displaced workers. New laws went into effect this summer to ensure more accountability among regional workforce agencies after multiple scandals around the state, Knowledge Quest's president, Cesar Ruiz, repeatedly declined formal interview requests with 10 News but said via phone that the reason the unhappy viewers contacted 10 News was not because of worthless training, but because background checks wound up costing them the jobs. Ruiz said jobs were lined up — but never promised. However, Ruiz later changed the story, saying leadership changes at the hiring company froze the positions they expected to fill. Knowledge Quest may also have exaggerated a number of its other relationships, including that it °partners with public school districts across the country." Among its claims, a relationship with the Hillsborough County School District in 2011, Knowledge Quest ran a STEM -themed summer program for students at Middleton High. But while Middleton's principal said it was a good experience for his students, public records requests to the district yielded no documents in connection to the course: the district has never paid Knowledge Quest nor have any Knowledge Quest grants gone through the school. The training may have been provided for free, allowing Knowledge Quest an opportunity to claim a relationship with the district. Knowledge Quest, while unsuccessfully chasing a $776,720 school "turnaround" contract in Monroe, La. claimed a history of working with schools across the country. However, the 10 News Investigators learned most — if not all — of the company's claimed "experience" in working with schools was from Vice President Jose Otero's tenure working with Rescare, prior to going to Knowledge Quest. School board members in Monroe, who narrowly voted down the lucrative proposal last year, said they had no faith in Knowledge Quest based on its lack of references. At this point in time, they have no track record of what they have turned around," Monroe Federation of Teachers and School Employees president Sandie Lollie told The News -Star at the time. "I can fond no documentation as to the validity of what they claim they can do." https://www.wtsp.com/articie/news/investigations/tampa-bay-workforce-alliance-squandering-tax-dollars-2011/67-511241398 Page 3 of 6