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Trident Workforce Investment Board receives employee-training funds
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
The Trident Workforce Investment Board will allocate $165,105 among nine local companies for Incumbent Worker Training, the board announced in November.
The funds will help pay for programs designed to upgrade the skills of the companies’ existing employees so they can perform jobs associated with new technology their companies use, said Paul Connerty, the board’s director.
The money will be used to train a total of 675 employees.
The board received the money from the S.C. Department of Commerce through the state’s Workforce Investment Act.
The department annually awards funds statewide to agencies devoted to work force training, Connerty said.
Businesses lacking the resources to fund training “pleaded” for Incumbent Worker Training funds, which subsidize up to 50% of a company’s training costs, Connerty said.
“Companies call us to find out when the funds will be available,” he said.
Workers who undergo the training end up earning higher wages, Connerty added.
The Incumbent Worker Training program requires that funding be allocated to businesses whose training applications will lead to increased wages for participating employees and reflect a strategy to avoid layoffs and promote worker retention.
Additionally, businesses that have not received such funding in the past should be given priority, according to the board.
With the exception of American LaFrance, none of the nine selected companies have received funding before.
Among the recipients is the Lowcountry Manufacturers Council, whose members include manufacturers throughout the tri-county area.
The council will receive $22,000 to train 60 employees across all three counties. How the funds will be distributed has yet to be determined, according to the Trident Workforce Investment Board.
Three small businesses, defined as having fewer than 100 employees, will receive funds as will five large businesses, defined as having more than 100 employees.
Aside from American LaFrance’s employees and the 60 employees who will receive training from the Lowcountry Manufacturers Council’s funding, 123 employees receiving training work in Charleston County and 47 work in Dorchester County.
The board can give leftover funding from a business that does not use all of its allocation to a business that did not receive any funding, Connerty said.
To be considered for funding, a company must submit to the board an application stating how it would use the funding, Connerty said.
The board then submits the applications to the state’s Incumbent Worker Training board in the S.C. Department of Commerce, which approves or denies the applications. This year, 15 companies in the tri-county area submitted applications totaling more than $552,289 in funding requests, according to the Trident board. The nine selected entities came from those 15.
The Trident Workforce Investment Board offers pre-employment training to fill vacancies left by employees who advanced to higher-paying jobs through the Incumbent Worker Training program, Connerty said.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer at the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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