Idaho getting more selective about call center funding

Gordon Kendall spent five weeks in training after he was hired by Center Partners. The classes prepared him for life as a call center agent, answering 100 or more calls per day from Los Angeles residents with questions about their phone service.

“It’s very fast-paced,” he said. “They want it now. Hurry up.”

Kendall’s training was paid for by the state of Idaho. Since 1996, the state’s Workforce Development Training Fund has spent $15 million teaching people to become call center agents.

The money poured into communities all over Idaho – training Coeur d’Alene residents to become directory assistance operators; Smelterville residents to make cold calls for the cable industry; and Idaho Falls residents to answer technical questions about Dell Computers.

The jobs were seen as good additions to local economies, particularly rural areas with high unemployment rates. With pay averaging $9 per hour, call centers couldn’t replace the wages of lost timber and mining jobs, but most provided health insurance to their workers

In addition to training workers, the state funds fueled the growth of Idaho’s call center industry. Companies received up to $2,000 in training money for each new worker hired – $3,000 if the job was in a rural area.

But the state will be less generous to call centers in the future. Officials are looking harder at the types of call center jobs created, following a wave of layoffs over the last year.

Center Partners – currently advertising for 300 call center agents in Coeur d’Alene – was turned down for training funds this spring.

“We no longer fund third-party call centers,” said Leandra Burns, planner for the Workforce Training Fund. “They would fluctuate too much in employment.”

Some of the call center jobs last only two or three years. Center Partners was a prime example of volatility in the industry. The Colorado-based company contracts with the telecommunications industry to provide customer service over the phone.

Center Partners received nearly $2.4 million from the state to train 1,200 workers in Kootenai County, but employment shrunk to about 400 in late 2003, after the company lost a large contract. Though the company is hiring again, it won’t receive more money from the state.

Another third-party call center, Tele-Servicing Innovations, received state funds to train 125 workers in Smelterville. The firm went out of business shortly before the federal “Do Not Call” list went into effect last year.

Workforce training dollars are the only cash incentive that Idaho offers to companies relocating to the state. The fund doles out about $3 million each. Demand for that money is very high, Burns said.

Idaho will continue to consider requests from in-house call centers, which generally have a more stable employment record, she said. U.S. Bank, for instance, which is building a Coeur d’Alene call center to serve bank clients, remains eligible for the funds.

“I respect the rationale behind making the change … our business has been unstable,” said Martha Lanaghen, Center Partners’ vice president of sales and marketing. But the instability reflected conditions in the broader economy in which many industries had layoffs, she said.

About one-third of the $15 million the state spent on call centers went to third-party call operations. Roger Madsen, director of the Idaho Department of Commerce and Labor, defends the money as well spent, even though some of the jobs were short-term.

“The purpose of the fund is to train workers, and get them into higher-paying jobs,” Madsen said. “Those employees may have gone to work at other call centers.”

Gordon Kendall spent about three years at Center Partners before leaving to take a sales position at the Coeur d’Alene Press. “I liked the job itself, but it wasn’t very secure, in pay or otherwise,” said the 39-year-old Coeur d’Alene man.

Center Partners laid him off last year and rehired him. Kendall was earning $9.17 per hour when he quit.

But the phone skills he honed at Center Partners helped him land a higher-paying job at the Press, Kendall said. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Center Partners.”

Kendall, who grew up in Coeur d’Alene, said it’s hard to find a good-paying job with benefits in North Idaho. It’s a sentiment Dave Larsen commonly hears on the campaign trail.

Three years ago, the Northwest Job Gap study defined a living wage job for a single Idaho resident as $10.11 per hour, or $21,000 per year, noted Larsen, a North Idaho College math instructor and Democratic candidate for state Legislature. The figure was based on a monthly budget of $379 for rent, $141 for food, $58 for health care and $130 for savings.

A single adult with a child would have to earn $12.82 per hour to meet basic needs, the study said.

Most call center jobs in Kootenai County pay $7 to $9 per hour, according to state figures.

“It certainly doesn’t make call center jobs seem to be something we should be tickled pink to attract,” Larsen said.

A call center agent salary probably wouldn’t support a household of four, acknowledged Steve Griffitts. But that doesn’t make it a bad job, said Griffitts, president of Jobs Plus. The nonprofit job recruitment corporation has been instrumental in bringing several call centers to Kootenai County.

“They’re entry level jobs. They’re career enhancing fields. They provide benefits,” Griffitts said.

Coeur d’Alene businessman Bob Nonini – Larsen’s Republican opponent – shares that view. An $8-an-hour job with health insurance and a (401)k plan is good starting wage, he said.