WORKFORCE SKILLS
How to find funds for training
As Oregon’s recession bottomed out in 2003, Oregon
employers faced significant shortages in skilled labor, despite
the lower hiring activity of the previous three years. An
increasing number of workers retiring with technical experience
exacerbated the shortfall in available knowledge. New
technologies put further pressure on the less-skilled labor
pool.
A task force determined that Oregon lagged behind the rest of
the country in public investment in workforce training and that
workforce training and development was not connected to
Oregon’s engines of economic growth. No coherent
statewide strategy existed to combat the problems.
To facilitate better training, Gov. Ted Kulongoski created the
Employer Workforce Training Fund (EWTF) in the fall of 2003.
The fund, intended to grow and retain a skilled workforce and
living-wage jobs in Oregon, assists companies with the cost of
training their workers.
The EWTF is a good resource for training Oregon’s
private sector workforce. The funds, available on a regional
and state level, provide support to companies with a need to
train current workers to retain and expand jobs. Regional-based
workforce response teams distributed about $3.9 million to
Oregon companies each of the last two years. Another $1.2
million was invested annually in statewide workforce training
initiatives.
Regional workforce response teams provide a single
point-of-contact and connect state resources to local
communities.
Each region uses a slightly different application process to
award workforce-training funds, with new dollars available each
year beginning on July 1. Claire Berger, Oregon’s
workforce policy coordinator, expects regional workforce
response teams to disburse about $3.6 in matching grants this
fiscal year to companies seeking aid with workforce
training.
Your company may qualify for workforce training funds.
The award criteria benefit companies in clusters formed around
trade-sectors, occupations or skills with shortages, and
training necessary to advance a company’s technological
capacity or enhance productivity. And while a company must
provide matching funds or an equal in-kind contribution to
receive the grant funds, no limit exists, apart from budgetary
constraints, to the size of an awarded grant.
The awarded funds cannot be used for the recruitment of
non-Oregon-based businesses or workers, as wages for trainees,
or for the purchase of equipment.
Go to www.oregon.gov/worksource/wrt/index.shtml
for further information and resources related to the grant
process, including a sample grant application, a boilerplate
contract for funding and lessons learned in the grant
process
— Robert H.
Hamrick
