137TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT

Workforce development grants
foster economic initiatives

New York State Assemblyman Charlie Nesbitt (R,C-Albion) announced the recent award of $69,459 in workforce development grants to Genesee Community College. The grant awards were as follows:

• $50,000 for Genesee Community College's customer service training and Student Leadership Institute programs conducted with the United Memorial Medical Center;
• $19,459 for Genesee Community College's customer service and continuous improvement training programs conducted with The Willow Group, Ltd.

Nesbitt said the grants, provided to the State University of New York's 30 community colleges, will help provide job training for 4,738 private and public sector employees with $1 million in Workforce Development Training Grants. The grants seek to promote and encourage the location and continued development of new businesses in the state, while creating and retaining high-quality jobs throughout the state.

Nesbitt indicated that when fully im-plemented, the initiative is expected to foster the creation of 334 new jobs and help retain 5,253 current jobs.

Among the 56 employer projects ap-proved in 2002, four are companies that have newly relocated in New York state and 38 are businesses expanding their operations. Some of the priorities utilized for project selection criteria include the following: companies that have recently located in the state, companies that are expanding their operations, business con-sortia, amount of jobs created and the availability of high levels of matching funds from employers.

Employers must contribute at least 25 percent of their grant amount in matching funds and this year employers are committing more than $1,378,000 with $252,000 of those funds in cash. Individual projects are expected to involve training for those businesses involved in e-commerce, technology, bio-medicine, health, energy, manufacturing, building trades, textiles, service industries, tourism and other fields.