Kentucky Commissioner of Workforce Investment Beth Kuhn said Friday steps are being taken to ensure there’s no repeat of the circumstances that caused nearly $600,000 in federal workforce funds that were allocated in southcentral Kentucky to be lost because they weren’t used.

The money will now be used for statewide workforce projects or given to workforce regions in Kentucky that spent all their money, Kuhn said.

She said everyone involved “can do better” and she’s increasing the information flow with a planned “regulation review boot camp” in August among the state’s workforce directors.

“Efforts that are undergoing now will improve the scrutiny of funds,” Kuhn said in a telephone interview with the Daily News. “I am confident and encouraged by the conversations that we having right now.”

Kuhn traveled to Bowling Green in recent years to explain to local officials seeking to set up their own four-county workforce region just how it might be accomplished.

The Warren, Simpson, Logan and Allen counties workforce region wasn’t approved, and even though the new South Central Workforce Development Board has been created and now has been meeting for several months, the past effort to pit large population counties versus small population counties has resulted in continuing friction.

That friction deteriorated to the point this past week that questions were raised about who signed what workforce document and why during a meeting of nine of the 10 judge-executives in southcentral Kentucky. Kuhn said the issue of Mayor Pro Tem Melinda Hill of the Bowling Green City Commission signing a contract instead of Mayor Bruce Wilkerson, who recused himself, has been resolved. “The contract has been signed,” Kuhn said. Wilkerson recused himself because Daymar College receives training funds and he’s the president of Daymar now.

The Barren River Area Development District has to return to the state $558,428.58 in federal workforce funds because the money was not programmed before the end of the 2015-16 fiscal year, which is complete June 30. The workforce board asked to roll over the money into a third fiscal year and was denied.

Kuhn said the circumstance regarding the federal money wasn’t unusual or alarming. She added that the state of Kentucky is awaiting new federal regulations regarding the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which took effect July 1, 2015, and is expected to last at least five years.

“The feds are about a year late in their regs being issued,” Kuhn said. “We are in a kind of squishy territory where we are anticipating the regs.”

Kuhn said the state’s transition from the old federal Workforce Investment Act to WIOA has taken the process from one that was somewhat detached as to the local politicians’ involvement to a situation where greater accountability exists for what are termed the Local Elected Officials, or LEOs.

“There has been a variation across the commonwealth,” Kuhn said. “By the end of WIA, a lot of systems were running on autopilot. The last 18 months it has been a process of re-engaging the local officials and the boards.”

Kuhn said Kentucky is actually ahead of other areas in America, particularly the establishment of career centers with relevant education. She said her watchword as she has traveled the state is to urge local officials to work together so that workforce needs may be met.

“We are looking for a consistency. We look across all areas to meet all requirements of program integrity. I don’t think these issues are fully unique to your area,” she said.

Kuhn said the loss of the federal dollars to the region doesn’t penalize it in future allocations. 

“The money is distributed by a formula determined by the feds that we have no control over,” she said.

— Follow business reporter Charles A. Mason on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.