Michigan’s Auditor General says a third of the state’s flagship employer training fund went to pay new hires’ wages on the job, not to the credentials the program promised. The Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity disputes the central finding, and its own file reviews lapsed for nearly three years.
Michigan’s Going Pro Talent Fund spent roughly $59.5 million over three fiscal years reimbursing employers for the wages of newly hired workers learning their jobs, even though the state’s own program guidance says every dollar of training “must lead to a credential for a skill that is transferable and recognized by industry.” That is the central conclusion of a performance audit (Report 186-0412-25) that Auditor General Doug Ringler delivered to the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) on September 17, 2026.
The audit covered awards made from October 1, 2022 through June 30, 2025, a period in which LEO approved 3,296 employer awards worth $182.6 million. The Auditor General rated LEO’s selection of applications “moderately effective” but rated its monitoring of the regional agencies that administer the money “not sufficient.” LEO disputes much of the report and defends on-the-job training as a recognized upskilling method. The department’s preliminary responses are published in the audit itself, and the Auditor General let its findings stand as written.
What the Program Promises, and What the Audit Found
The fund was created by Public Act 260 of 2018 and is administered through LEO’s Workforce Development unit, according to the department’s program page. Employers apply through one of 16 local Michigan Works! Agencies (MWAs), which also manage the awards once approved. Under LEO’s rules, awards are capped at $2,000 per non-apprentice trainee, $3,500 per apprentice trainee and $500,000 per employer.
Auditors reviewed how the money was actually spent. Their breakdown of the $182.6 million, drawn from the report’s Exhibit 4, shows:
- New-employee on-the-job training (OJT): $59.5 million, or 33 percent of all awards;
- Classroom and customized training: $72.2 million, or 39 percent;
- Apprentice OJT: $36.8 million, or 20 percent;
- Apprentice classroom and customized training: $14.2 million, or 8 percent.
The Auditor General classified the new-employee OJT spending as a “material condition,” its more serious category of finding. The report states that these awards pay “new employees’ wages while they learn how to perform the job for which they were hired, rather than training that leads to a credential.” LEO acknowledged to auditors that new-employee OJT does not confer a credential and that it did not intend to require one for that category, the report says.
Three Examples From the Audit Files
The report cites three sampled awards, each of which works out to the program’s $2,000-per-trainee cap:
- A nursing home received $20,000 to train 10 newly hired certified nurse aides, each receiving 118 hours of grant-funded OJT;
- A metal stamping manufacturer received $8,000 to train four newly hired packers, each receiving 160 hours;
- An automotive parts manufacturer received $18,000 to train nine newly hired machine operators, each receiving 160 hours.
LEO’s own materials, including its website, fact sheet and annual employer guide, repeat the credential requirement, auditors noted. So did the Michigan Statewide Workforce Plan, as quoted in the audit, released by the governor’s office in March 2024, which described Going Pro training as “leading to recognized credentials.” The audit concluded that LEO’s process guide was “silent” on credentials for new-employee OJT in its later sections, “suggesting needed clarity in its guide.”
The Department’s Defense, and the Statute’s Gap
LEO’s response rests on the statute. Public Act 260 explicitly lists “the actual cost of on-the-job training, including wage reimbursement, as determined by the department” as a permissible use of funds. LEO told auditors that OJT “equips employees with job-specific skills for permanent full-time roles” and that employers “are not credentialing authorities,” so OJT does not produce a credential by design. It also argued that award selection is driven by scoring criteria that do not require credential attainment.
The Auditor General rejected that reasoning, calling LEO’s response a complication of “a very straightforward issue.” The auditors wrote that the department, not the audit office, determined that credentials were required and that LEO “awarded a significant portion of funding for new employees’ OJT costs, which generally does not lead to a credential.”
The audit also flagged a legal question the Legislature has not resolved. The law, at MCL 408.157, bars awards “for basic training” but does not define the term. In an observation, auditors said new-employee OJT, “in whole or part, may be considered basic training in the context of the Act,” and encouraged stakeholders to consider legislative clarification.
Who Might Have Gotten the Money Instead
The opportunity cost is the audit’s sharpest edge. During the audit period, 52 percent of Going Pro applications were denied because of funding constraints. Auditors wrote that, had LEO not funded the $59.5 million in new-employee OJT, “more funding may have been available for some of the denied applications.” The report’s Exhibit 3 lists 2,245 denied applications totaling $92.9 million, though the report notes that category includes applications denied for reasons other than funding, so not all of that sum represents unmet demand.
LEO called the idea that denied applicants represented “other opportunities” for upskilling “speculative and unsupported,” pointing out that lower-scoring applications are less competitive by design. The Auditor General maintained that its finding stands.
The spending was concentrated by sector. Manufacturing accounted for 51 percent of approved applications and about $95.0 million, followed by health care at 16 percent and about $28.8 million, according to Exhibit 3.
Monitoring Gaps: No File Reviews for Nearly Three Years
The second major finding concerns oversight. LEO’s internal procedures call for a file review of at least five awards for each of the 16 MWAs every fiscal year. Auditors found LEO completed none from September 2022 through the end of the audit period in June 2025. The most recent reviews on record dated to May through August 2022. LEO said it paused file reviews because of major program changes, including two application cycles per year, a streamlined application and revisions to its tracking system, and that it substituted desk reviews. It began reviewing 110 fiscal 2023 awards in July 2025 and, as of March 2026, had finished all but one MWA, according to the audit.
Auditors could not evaluate the desk reviews, either. LEO kept no evidence of them beyond a status field in its tracking system, so the auditors said they were “unable to conclude on the quality or thoroughness of those review processes.” LEO partially agreed with the finding, accepting the facts but disputing that it amounted to a material condition.
A third finding, rated a reportable condition, examined 33 sampled award files. According to the report:
- None contained documentation showing the MWA verified trainee eligibility;
- For nearly all sampled awards, MWAs relied on employer self-reported median wages without checking payroll records;
- Only three files held course descriptions for classroom or customized training.
LEO disagreed with this finding. The audit did not identify fraud or specific misuse by any employer, and it credited LEO with strengths: the tracking system scored every sampled application correctly, and LEO verified that award recipients had no outstanding state tax obligations.
The Political Response and What Comes Next
House Appropriations Chair Ann Bollin, a Republican, said in a statement that “millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent, but basic oversight and accountability are missing.” Democratic Sen. Winnie Brinks said lawmakers may review the law to see whether it matches the fund’s intent, according to WWMT. LEO spokesperson Mike Murray told Bridge Michigan the agency is finishing a formal internal review manual and identifying record-keeping improvements, and called Going Pro “a nationally recognized, highly valued and cost-effective upskilling method.”
Under state procedure, LEO must submit a plan to comply with the recommendations to the State Budget Office within 60 days of the report’s issuance, which falls in mid-November. The fund’s budget has already shrunk, according to Bridge Michigan: about $32 million last year, a 40 percent drop, and $14.4 million for the fiscal year that began October 1.
Open questions remain. The department has not said whether it will begin requiring credentials for new-employee OJT, seek a statutory change that expressly authorizes wage reimbursement, or keep funding it under current guidance. The Legislature has not defined “basic training.” And because the audit examined sampled files rather than every award, it did not determine how many employers received funds for trainees who were ineligible. LEO’s positions in this report are drawn from its published responses in the audit and its public statements to Bridge Michigan; The Investigative Journal did not obtain additional comment from the department before publication.
Featured image: Dome of the Michigan State Capitol, Lansing, photo by w_lemay, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.