Web training course switch may save fuel
DHS: Agency makes changes as gas prices rise
Reducing classroom coaching is the plan for new employees.
DHS Web training course switch may save fuel
By Randy Ellis
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Published: July 24, 2008
Pressured by high gasoline prices, the Oklahoma Department of Human Services has decided to switch from classroom training to Web-based training for contract employees who serve the agency's developmentally disabled clients.
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The Oklahoma Department of Human Services isn't the same agency it used to be.
"Forty-one years ago, it was pretty much handing out (welfare) checks,” said David Shafer, who is retiring as the agency's chief administrative officer after 41 years of DHS service.
"They had a big machine that printed up checks, and they passed out checks, ” Shafer said during his farewell speech at Tuesday's DHS Commission meeting.
In recent years, many "really fine programs have developed to help people help themselves,” he said.
DHS used to be an agency that was swimming in money, he said.
In the old days, then-director Lloyd Rader would call meetings in June to tell employees they needed to quickly spend $50 million or $60 million to avoid losing it at the end of the fiscal year, Shafer said.
The agency would respond by buying tractors and all kinds of equipment, he said.
"We had money it seemed like we couldn't get all spent,” he said. "Here today, we have so many great programs, such a great need, and yet we really have to struggle for the funding for those programs.”
What are the savings?
DHS will pay a licensing fee of a little more than $400,000 a year to the College of Direct Support to provide Web-based training using a curriculum that is regularly updated by the University of Minnesota, Nicholson said.
The agency has paid contractors about $2.7 million a year to provide classroom training, he said. Some classroom training will still be needed, but several hundred thousand dollars a year may be saved, he indicated.
Contractors will save money because they won't have to pay high transportation costs of sending about 2,500 new employees a year for 72 hours or more of classroom training, Nicholson said. They also will be able to avoid paying for temporary employees while other employees are being trained.
Each contract agency will have to pay an annual $2,800 administrator fee and must provide appropriately equipped computers. Goodwin said that could be an initial hardship on small contractors, but the switch will save a lot of money for most contractors in the long run.
Nicholson said it costs $2,800 to $3,500 to train a new service provider and there is about a 50 percent annual turnover rate.
Goodwin said one advantage of Web-based training is employees can review what they have been taught.
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