Amid a hail of public mockery, Workforce Central Florida abruptly shut down a marketing campaign to distribute 6,000 red capes to job seekers and employers.

But it doesn't end there. A state investigation is now under way, marking the third time Workforce Central Florida has come under scrutiny for questionable spending practices.

The agency said its "out-of-the-box" initiative was designed to "introduce our programs and services to job seekers and employers who need them."

In a statement issued Wednesday, the agency said the cape giveaway produced quick results.

"Fortunately, we’ve achieved some success in the short week and a half the campaign has run, including new job postings online, new job candidates registered for services and an increase in usage of our website," the release said.

But the $14,000 red-cape campaign, which the agency admitted "seemed to offend some," drew fire from Florida's No. 1 job booster: Gov. Rick Scott.

"Governor Scott knows people needs jobs, not capes. It's an insult to do what this group did," said Scott spokesman Brian Hughes. "The governor can't imagine a good explanation for this."

Workforce Central Florida Vice President Kim Sullivan said the "Cape-A-Bility Challenge" was aimed at "introducing our programs and services to job seekers and employers who need them."

In addition to the superhero capes, the ill-fated WCF campaign featured a cartoon character, "Dr. Evil Unemployment," who needs to be vanquished.

The agency, on its website, says it helps "more than 4,000 employers connect with more than 54,000 job seekers every year" by offering "innovative solutions to assist Central Florida businesses succeed in today’s highly competitive work force, while providing the tools job seekers need to find or advance in their current career."

Sullivan said the decision to halt the cape crusade was made Wednesday morning "by our volunteer board leadership team in concern that the campaign may have been a little too out-of-the-box and missed the mark with such a broad audience."

The cape campaign and the resulting blowback apparently caught the state's Agency for Workforce Innovation by surprise.

The "Cape-A-Bility Challenge," said AWI spokesman Robby Cunningham, "appears insensitive to the challenges faced by the more than 1 million Floridians who are currently unemployed."

Regional boards such as Workforce Central Florida are exotic bureaucratic hybrids that operate with a high degree of autonomy -- and loads of federal cash. WCF annually receives $21 million to $25 million from Washington.

Headed by local political appointees, the boards rely almost exclusively on federal funding. Though funds flow through AWI, the state agency does not give prior approval for expenditures, and any oversight comes after the fact.

"AWI is responsible for conducting annual monitoring of expenditures made by regional work-force boards to determine whether those expenditures were an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars under federal guidelines," Cunningham said.

"While the agency takes this responsibility very seriously, we have no direct authority over day-to-day operations of the regional boards," Cunningham added.

But amid a storm of public criticism, AWI quickly ordered its inspector general to investigate the "Cape-A-Bility Challenge." The agency gave no time frame for the probe.

The investigation is at least the third involving Workforce Central Florida. AWI's inspector general is also looking into WCF's $250,000 purchase of staff cars. That investigation is ongoing.

And back in 2006, the WCF Foundation had to return $3.5 million in federal funds over allegations they had been misused in the renovation of a jobs center in Lake Mary.