Section 4 Workforce training grants
Section 4. (a) Subject to appropriation, the director of workforce development, shall make expenditures on workforce training grants for the following purposes:
(1) To provide grants to employers, employer groups, labor organizations and training providers for projects to provide education and training to existing employees and newly hired workers. In determining who shall receive grants, the director shall consider the following criteria:
(i) whether the project will increase the skills of low-wage, low-skilled workers;
(ii) whether the project will create or preserve jobs at wages sufficient to support a family;
(iii) whether the project will have a positive economic impact on a region with high levels of unemployment or a high concentration of low-skilled workers;
(iv) whether the employer has made a commitment to provide significant private investment in training during the duration of the grant and after the grant has expired;
(v) whether the project will supplement, rather than replace, private investments in training;
(vi) whether the employer is a small business that lacks the capacity to provide adequate training without such assistance;
(vii) whether the project will provide residents of the commonwealth with training for jobs that could otherwise be filled only by residents of other nations; and
(viii) whether the project is consistent with the workforce development blueprint prepared by the regional employment board.
Such grants shall be for amounts not to exceed $250,000 and shall be for a term not to exceed 2 years.
(2) To provide technical assistance to increase training opportunities available to employees. The director may provide this direct technical assistance by using existing institutions such as workforce investment boards, community colleges, labor organizations, administrative entities under the federal Workforce Investment Act, Public Law 105-220, and other entities that have expertise in providing technical assistance regarding employee training or with employees of the department of workforce development or of the corporation for business, work and learning. Such expenditures shall not exceed $3,000,000 each year and the director shall demonstrate that each dollar expended generates not less than $5 in private investment in job training.
(b) The director of the department of workforce development shall adopt regulations, with the approval of the secretary, pursuant to chapter 30A to carry out this section.
(c) Not later than September 1 of each year, the director of workforce development shall file a report in writing with the joint committee on commerce and labor and the house and senate committees on ways and means concerning the grants made in the fiscal year ending on the preceding June 30, together with such recommendations and additional information as the director of workforce development considers appropriate.
(d) Documentary materials or data made or received by an employee of the department of workforce development, to the extent that such materials or data consist of trade secrets or commercial or financial information regarding the operation of a business conducted by an applicant for a grant from the fund established by this section, shall not be public records and shall not be subject to section 10 of chapter 66.