AMERICORPS WAS FAULTY FROM THE START

The decision to close the AmeriCorps office in Cape Girardeau may be, all by itself, the strongest indication that the program should never have been started in the first place.

AmeriCorps is the brainchild of the Clinton administration. The program was touted as a way of instilling the values of volunteerism along with the opportunity to earn credit for college tuition. In addition, there were many goodies pulled from various social programs -- all taxpayer funded, of course -- for AmeriCorps participants. In addition to earning money, college-tuition credit and a sense of civic involvement, AmeriCorps volunteers had access to health care, child care and housing subsidies.

Besides the college-age participants, there were other beneficiaries of AmeriCorps as well. Mainly among them were those who wrote grant applications and got themselves appointed as local overseers of the program. As with far too many grant programs, too much of the money could easily be siphoned into personal banking accounts -- legally -- to pay for administrative services and other costs rather than going to volunteers who were supposed to make America, in the view of the Clinton administration, a better educated nation.

There were certain aspects intended for the AmeriCorps program that genuinely could make a difference. With nationwide welfare reform in full swing, AmeriCorps had the potential to provide former welfare recipients with an opportunity to better themselves while providing a public service, all with the goal of a college education that would lead to even better employment opportunities and a higher standard of living.

The AmeriCorps program sounded a lot like a combination of the GI Bill, the Peace Corps and VISTA, but sadly it never has managed to capture the high ground of those programs. Instead, volunteers were shuffled into no-fuss-no-bother jobs, mostly tutoring in area schools. While there may be a need for some volunteer tutors, it is hard to believe that nearly all the AmeriCorps volunteers should be working in schools.

There were complaints, many of them legitimate, from volunteers who encountered favoritism and shoddy accounting of hours worked -- in some cases losing out on the promised college-tuition benefits as a result.

There were also complaints from area businesses and institutions that the local AmeriCorps program was hopelessly mired in bureaucracy, making it difficult to match public-service programs with willing volunteers who might actually have benefited from the program.

With pressure from the state Community Service Commission, AmeriCorps is shutting its doors rather than comply with recommendations that would have broadened the area served and, as a result, would have turned administering the program into real work.

The program was ill-conceived from the start. Better that it close now rather than continue to be a costly drain on taxpayers.