$4M Valley jobs grant proves Uncle Sam can spend wisely

Over the years, many fed- erally funded projects have been deserved targets of derision and indignation. From a $171,000 taxpayer-financed study on the gambling habits of monkeys to an $856,000 grant to film mountain lions working out on treadmills, many grant programs have been rightfully lambasted as wasteful, foolish government spending in action.

Refreshingly, a $4 million federal grant to a consortium of Mahoning Valley groups this week from the U.S. Department of Labor is nothing to snicker at.

Indeed, the award announced Monday by Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez to the Youngstown-based Flying HIGH agency represents a credible and meaningful investment into workforce development in our still economically struggling Mahoning Valley. That investment carries promising prospects of long-term dividends.

We congratulate Jeffrey Magada, founder and executive director of Flying HIGH, for crafting the winning proposal, one of only 39 in the nation and the only one exclusively in Ohio that Uncle Sam chose to fund in the TechHire program for innovative training and placement models to create and keep jobs in local communities.

The grant will finance the work of the Mahoning Valley Partnership for Employment to equip people, particularly military veterans and those with criminal records, with the skills needed for high-demand jobs in advanced welding technologies and in health care over the next four years.

Our optimism for the program’s viability and success rests on several levels.

First, the low-profile Flying HIGH agency spearheading the project has a high-octane track record of success.

Flying HIGH’s roots date to 1988, when Magada organized a touch-football league that grew into organized sports activities for nearly 3,000 youths at risk of anti-social behaviors and criminal lifestyles. In ensuing years, its focus shifted more heavily toward counseling, character-building, education and job training initiatives.

Second, the partnership organized by Flying HIGH offers a textbook example of the public and private sectors working cooperatively for community improvement, economic development and personal enrichment.

The Mahoning Valley Partnership for Employment will link the workforce investment boards in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties to the Mahoning Valley Section of the American Welding Society, the Washington Square Healthcare Center, Dandridge’s Burgundi Manor, Columbiana Boiler Co., the Choffin School of Practical Nursing and Eastern Gateway Community College.

Collectively, those agencies build a sturdy foundation for professional training and jobs growth.

TRAINING FOR IN-DEMAND JOBS

Perhaps most importantly, however, is the program’s goal of improving job skills of Valley residents and enhancing the workforce of Valley businesses with employees well-trained in state-of-the-art best practices.

The program’s accent on manufacturing and health care rightly recognizes the laws of supply and demand.

For example, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the number of welding jobs should rise 6 percent in coming years, and the American Welding Society recently estimates at least a 10 percent jump in need for those positions over the next decade.

Employment of registered nurses is projected to grow 16 percent by 2024. According to BLS, growth will occur for a number of reasons, including an increased emphasis on preventive care; growing rates of chronic conditions, such as diabetes and obesity; and demand for health care services from the baby-boom population as they live longer and have more-active lives.

In Mahoning County, the Area Agency on Aging 11 projects an 18 percent increase in the 60-plus population by 2020.

The program aims to offer home-grown training for Valley-based jobs with some of the partners pledging to hire well-trained graduates. It also offers rewards for our nation’s often-forgotten veterans and those citizens returning from prison to gain momentum to a new way of life and economic self-sufficiency.

Over its four-year duration, it also may help to reduce the region’s above-average unemployment rate and speed up our Valley’s sluggish recovery from the global recession.

We’re pleased the Obama administration has recognized as much. As Magada himself aptly put it, “More than any other place, the Mahoning Valley needs these funds. This is a perfect employment program for the area.”