Warrensburg career center to reopen on UCM campus

The Missouri Career Center in Warrensburg will relocate to a site on the University of Central Missouri campus, allowing some of the services to continue to be provided in the city just weeks after the facility was targeted for closure due to budget constraints.

The center is set to reopen Tuesday in Unit C of the Fraternity Complex at 900 S. Holden St., according to Pati Carter, executive director of the Workforce Development Board of Western Missouri.

The board voted in May to close the center in Warrensburg after seeing its budget slashed nearly $2 million over the last two years. On June 22, the facility ceased offering its full slate of services, although it continued to provide four-week reporting services through Friday for people receiving unemployment benefits.

Following the decision to shut down the facility, state Sen. David Pearce and state Rep. Denny Hoskins helped coordinate a meeting with representatives from UCM and various community and government agencies in Warrensburg to find a new location to host the career center.

“UCM was at the table and very cooperative in helping us to decide what to do,” Pearce said in a UCM news release, noting there was a sense of urgency to help keep the Missouri Career Center’s services in the county. “The participants were all forthcoming and said ‘we’ve got to do something and do it fast.’ ”

Under the agreement reached, UCM will provide the 900 square-foot space for the center rent-free, said university spokesman Jeff Murphy, while the center will cover the costs of necessary improvements for the facility, as well as telephone service, computers and equipment needed to continue its operations.

Murphy said Unit C of the Fraternity Complex was currently unoccupied, after most recently being used for faculty office space in the athletic training program while renovations were being made in the Morrow-Garrison complex.

“We know the Missouri Career Center is currently in need of a facility to carry out services that are vital to this community. We are glad to work with the center and its staff to make space available as expediently as possible so opportunities are continued,” UCM President Charles Ambrose said in a news release.

Carter said the center in Warrensburg will have the equivalent of about 3.5 full-time staff members, and it will be open Monday through Friday each week to offer job placement services, resume and interview preparation assistance, four-week reporting and other services.

According to the university, the facility will also provide enrollment services one day per week for on-the-job training and schooling for adult and displaced workers, along with possible weekly, abbreviated workshops on job preparation topics, depending on enrollment.

“There’s still going to be almost a full array of services available ... It will be more one-on-one. It just won’t have the larger workshop arrangements,” Carter said. “Those who need or want more comprehensive services can still drive about 30 miles to the offices in Clinton or Sedalia.”

This week, employees have been moving the center from its previous location on South Maguire Street to the new site. Carter said the board appreciated the collaborative efforts that had been made to maintain some of the services offered in Warrensburg without a lapse.

“We’re really appreciative all of the people here and at the Division of Workforce Development who jumped through all the hoops to make this happen,” Carter said.