A federally funded residential job training center in Palmer must close completely by the end of June and begin sending students home this week under an “operations pause” ordered by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The Don Young Alaska Job Corps Center in Palmer is one of more than 100 no-cost residential training centers nationwide operated by Department of Labor contractors. About two dozen additional centers are run by the U.S. Forest Service and focus on conservation-related training, according to the Job Corps website.

Nationwide funding for Job Corps is not currently included in the proposed federal budget for next year.

The program is being paused because it operated at a $140 million deficit last year and because closing it “reflects the administration’s commitment to ensure federal workforce investments deliver meaningful results for both students and taxpayers,” according to a statement issued May 29.

The Alaska Center, which opened in 1994, costs about $9 million annually to operate, Director Bobbie Irvin said in an interview May 30. It is run under a Department of Labor contract with Chugach Alaska Corp., which also operates five centers in the Lower 48, according to their website.

The Palmer location is the only Job Corps facility in Alaska.

Officials with the Washington, D.C.-based National Job Corps Association plan to request a court order halting the shutdown, Irvin said.

A spokesperson for the organization declined to comment on the status of that request. A spokesperson for Chugach referred all questions to the Job Corps association.

Job Corps students are between the ages of 16 and 24 and attend trade schools, earn a GED high school equivalency, or both. Students typically live on campus for more than a year, Irvin said.

The Alaska Center currently serves 160 students, most of whom are housed on the 19-acre campus for the duration of their training, Irvin said. The program had about a 70% completion rate last year, and about 80% of students come from rural Alaska villages where no similar educational programs are available, he said.

About 90% of graduates are placed in jobs earning an average of $20.34 an hour, he said.

The Alaska program’s annual cost per student is $37,000, Irvin said.

The Labor Department’s statement also cited a “startling number of serious incident reports,” with 14,913 nationwide in 2023, including about 2,700 instances of drug use and about 1,200 breaches of safety and security. A total of 50 “serious incidents” were logged at the Palmer campus, according to the transparency report.

Irvin said that data does not tell the whole story. While the term “serious incident” may suggest crimes or infractions, the log also includes a broad range of other campus events, he said. For example, Department of Labor rules require Job Corps officials to log as “serious incidents” any instance of a student leaving campus without permission or visits by local dignitaries, including a March visit by U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, he said.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she plans to push back against the planned closure.

“While some Job Corps centers may be struggling across the country, the Don Young Alaska Job Corps Center stands out as a model of excellence,” she said in a statement. “I oppose the Department’s blanket closure of all Job Corps centers nationwide and am urging Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer to consider the significant loss this would pose not only for Alaska, but for the administration’s resource development goals in the state.”

Officials with U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan’s office said the training provided by Job Corps is needed to meet an executive order issued by President Donald Trump aimed at boosting the state’s natural resource industry.

Sullivan is “engaging with the Labor Secretary directly to voice Alaskans’ opposition to this closure and to highlight Job Corps’ importance to Alaska’s growing economy,” his office said.

Employees at the Alaska Job Corps Center suspected the shutdown was coming after the Labor Department halted background checks for new students about nine weeks ago, Irvin said.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty, and with the students, there’s a lot of fear,” he said. “Obviously, we’re going to send them back to their village, but that’s not what they want. I have staff who have been here since the center opened 31 years ago, and they are just devastated.”

Chuck Legge, a driving instructor who has worked at the school since 1996, said he believes the national organization will be able to fight off the closure and that the center will ultimately survive.

“We are going to fight this thing, and we think we have a fair chance of beating this right now,” he said. “The focus is to get the word out that this is happening.”

Republished with permission from the Mat-Su Sentinel, an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan online news source. Contact Amy Bushatz at abushatz@matsusentinel.com.