TRENTON, NJ  - A local organization running a statewide prison education program, headed by controversial Trenton community leader Emmanuel ben Avraham, has come under fire by the state auditor's office. The group, Life Skills Academy, Inc., works with inmates in New Jersey's state prisons, and the auditor's office has brought the organization's methods and effectiveness into question, according to a report published yesterday in The Bergen Record.

Avraham, formerly known as Shahid Watson, has run the organization since 1994, when it was created with $1.5 million in state funding as part of the Amer-I-Can program started by football legend Jim Brown.

Avraham parted ways with Brown in 2000, renamed his chapter of the group the Life Skills Academy, and has continued to receive the $1.5 million annually.

The state auditor's report, according to the published reports, questions why Life Skills, is the only vendor paid directly by a line item in the state's $30 billion budget.

The audit report, asserts that there was no oversight of the group by the department of corrections, and that the group was free to monitor its own progress. It also said that attendance was not properly recorded, so it was essentially unknown if inmates were receivingthe lessons paid for by the state.

Deirdre Fedkenheuer, spokesperson for the Department of Corrections, said acting Commissioner George Hayman, was addressing the audit report.

She said Hayman was working with Life Skills personnel to ensure attendance would be taken and said the department would develop a way to measure the program's merits.

"You'd have to look back a few years to check recidivism rates, whether they went on to take other educational courses, things of that nature," Fedkenheuer said.

But Avraham said last night that studies, by both the Department of Corrections, and independent investigators, have shown that his program has been working.

Avraham said the Department of Corrections conducted studies to check on the effectiveness of the program, and said the results were so impressive that they seemed impossible.

He said the department then ordered an independent study, to be paid for by Life Skills, in order to confirm the results.

He said that study, done three years ago, showed that the recidivism rate for prisoners who had gone through his program was 2.67 percent compared to the overall rate of 26 to 32 percent.

When asked why his group was the only outside vendor who's funding was accounted for directly as a line item in the state budget, Avraham didn't have a direct answer, but hinted that it was because his group was so good at what they do.

"I don't find anything strange in a situation like this," he said of his group's distinction. "As effective as we have been in terms of addressing the problem...it just shows the boldness and the courage of our state leadership."