The state Labor Department eliminated civil service employees who assist dislocated workers and help with job training in the weeks and months before Alexander &Baldwin announced that it was closing its Maui sugar plantation and laying off more than 650 workers.

The staff reductions affected workers on Maui, Molokai and Hawaii island, but are particularly troubling for Maui with Alexander &Baldwin set to begin a first round of layoffs in March.

The Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations laid off a total of nine civil service employees — three on Maui, one on Molokai and five on Hawaii island. The staff worked at one-stop centers, which are designed to provide comprehensive services to job seekers, such as career counseling, job training, assistance with unemployment benefits and access to computers.

The layoffs resulted in a 29 percent overall decline in one-stop workers on those islands and gutted the staff that worked in the adult and dislocated worker programs.

The reasons for the layoffs are unclear. State officials blame a change in federal contracting laws, while Maui County officials point to a reduction in federal funds.

However, an official with the U.S. Department of Labor says that Hawaii hasn’t seen any significant drop in federal funding that supports one-stop centers. Nor does she understand why a change in federal contracting requirements would result in nine state workers being laid off.

“I can’t answer the questions as to why staff were riffed,” Virginia Hamilton, a regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration, said by email.

Earlier this month, DLIR Director Linda Chu Takayama told legislators during a budget briefing that the layoffs were a result of a new federal law that requires services at one-stop centers to be competitively bid. The counties have historically contracted with DLIR to provide services under its adult and dislocated worker programs. Chu Takayama said that DLIR had to essentially restructure a department called the Workforce Development Council, making it a “stand-alone entity” that could bid on the county one-stop contracts.

“We did this four or five months ago and managed to do it almost overnight,” Chu Takayama said.

“Unfortunately, in the process this affected staff on the neighbor islands and we ended up having to put nine of them through a RIF,” she said, referring to the acronym for a reduction in force.

Eight of the nine civil service workers have been transferred to other jobs within the government, according to DLIR.

In a follow-up interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Elaine Young, the administrator for DLIR’s Workforce Development Division, said that the new contracting requirements made it unclear last year whether the counties would continue to contract with the state for the one-stop services. This month Hawaii and Maui counties decided that they would continue contracting with DLIR, she said, but by that time the state workers had already been laid off.

“We are not blaming anyone, we don’t want to get into that situation,” Young said. “It’s just the circumstances that this new law did this.”

She said that she warned the counties last year that the workers would be laid off if they didn’t soon make a decision on the contracts.

But Maui County officials have a different explanation as to why workers at their one-stop centers were laid off. Leslie Wilkins, head of Maui’s Workforce Investment Board, said it had nothing to do with a change in federal contracting requirements or the county’s failure to issue a contract soon enough to save the jobs of the state workers.

“The reason the layoffs occurred is because the amount of money that comes to the state of Hawaii is determined by the federal government by a formula. One thing they look to is the unemployment rate. Hawaii has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation,” Wilkins said. “The layoffs were based on the fact that the federal government is giving us less money.”

However, federal figures provided by Hamilton show no significant decline in available funding for one-stop center services between the 2015 and 2016 fiscal years. Funding, which fluctuates annually, only dropped by 1 percent, from $8.36 million to $8.25 million, a difference of about $115,000.

Funding for the dislocated worker program actually increased by 4 percent.

State and county officials say that other staff at the one-stop centers have absorbed the work of the laid-off workers. Wilkins said that Maui County’s new contact will ensure that services will not be disrupted.

“So it will be seamless for our community,” Wilkins said. “Our community won’t suffer from a change of contractors.”

Young said she wasn’t sure if new one-stop workers would be hired under the new contract. She added that it’s unlikely that the state would be able to hire back the laid-off workers because they’ve taken new jobs.

Managers of the one-stop centers on Maui and Hawaii island did not respond to interview requests.

But Alberta Patchen, who manages the Molokai one-stop center, said that the loss of one-stop staff in Maui County has strained resources. She said the laid-off worker on Molokai had worked for the one-stop center for about 15 years and was responsible for outreach with employers.

“It affects our ability to serve our community in the best manner we can,” she said, noting Molokai’s unemployment rate is in double digits. The center is down to two full-time staff members.

She said that state and county officials are scrambling to come up with resources to prepare for the layoffs of Maui sugar workers.

“They even asked me to come over to help them,” she said. “With the recent (sugar worker) layoffs it is just not timely.”

Rep. Lynn DeCoite (East Maui-Molokai-Lanai-Kahoolawe) said she was confounded by the layoffs of one-stop workers.

“It is not clear to me where DLIR is coming from,” she said, noting that federal funding hadn’t declined.

“Do you guys really know what you are doing because you are passing blame — that is really what is happening,” DeCoite said in reference to DLIR officials.

Meanwhile, DLIR says it’s mobilizing a rapid response team to deal with the pending layoffs of Maui sugar workers. Young said earlier this month that the department was looking to see whether it had enough rapid response money and if not the department would ask the feds for an emergency grant.

But Hamilton said that Hawaii’s DLIR doesn’t qualify for any emergency aid because it hasn’t spent the rapid response money that the federal government has already provided.

“They are saying that the money is available in the state, but they haven’t been able to use it because it is tied up in contracts,” Hamilton said. “That may by legitimate, it may not. It’s just not something we have any control over.”

She said she didn’t know what type of contracts DLIR may have put the money toward. DLIR didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“The bottom line is that Hawaii hasn’t spent a sufficient amount of their rapid response money to qualify for national emergency grant funds,” Hamilton said.