By David Spunt Reporter
News 3 On Your Side
The Chattahoochee Valley has $3 million more in its pocket after the U.S. Secretary of Labor made a visit Wednesday morning to Atlanta to talk about Base Realignment and Closure, or BRAC.News 3 On Your Side
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Stumble It!Secretary Elaine Chao presented a check worth $5 million to Governor Sonny Perdue. The Department of Labor awarded the grant to help fund the state's workforce training program.
$3 million will go to the local Chattahoochee Valley area to help with workforce development and training. News 3 asked Governor Perdue if this grant is the first of many or a one time deal.
“I'd like to think it's the beginning of many, but we can't say that for sure. This is a great award that our workforce development applied for,” Perdue said.
The Columbus Chamber of Commerce told News 3 they are working on how that money will be allocated. They expect to make the announcement either later this week or the beginning of next week.
For the past two years, the state of Georgia has offered assessment tests as part of Georgia's state work ready program.
In order to be a part of the work ready program, you have the option of taking an assessment test called the WorkKeys Test.
One of the locations in Columbus that offers the test is Columbus Technical College. It's a free test and once completed it will put you in a state wide computer database that will profile your work skills.
After you take the test, you can participate in the training program that will be suited to your needs.
“The training is beneficial for not only the examinee but for the area as well because a company if they need a certain number of people in a particular skill, and these people don't meet that skill, they can customize the test to fit the industry,” said Ellen Harvill with Columbus Technical College
As for how the three million will be allocated locally, it will provide free training for the areas of aerospace, automotive, defense industries, industrial construction and information technology.
We're on your side with how you can become a part of that free training program.
In order to qualify for the training funded by today's grant, you have to specialize in one of the five work fields mentioned above. You must also take the Georgia work ready test, better known as the WorkKeys Test.
To take the test, you can contact Columbus Technical College at 706-649-1822. The test takes approximately four and a half hours long and is done on the computer.