Tapping Into State Money to Help Train Employees

Azmina Kanji was a corporate controller who obtained an MBA with the idea of eventually owning her own company. In 1989, she combined personal savings with a loan from the Small Business Administration and purchased a computer training company. The timing was good, since office PCs were beginning to dominate the business environment, but Kanji found that employers tried to skimp on training their employees, even though it hurt their productivity. By tapping into government training funds, she says, business owners can get the most out of the expensive technology they buy for their companies. Kanji was interviewed by freelance writer Karen E. Klein.

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Companies always have a resistance to training. They tell us they don’t have a budget for training and, consequently, they don’t train people well or they train them skimpily, on just one computer program. The company can afford to buy all these great computers and all this great software, but they don’t have money left over to show their employees how to use it properly.

What companies don’t realize is that state government funds exist to help pay for formal training and retraining of their employees. People have the perception that government bureaucracy is so difficult to deal with that it’s not worth it to apply for public funding of any kind.

But that perception really is not true when it comes to the state’s Employment Training Panel, which administers between $70 million and $100 million in training funds set aside annually from the employment training tax, which is collected quarterly with employers’ contributions to the unemployment insurance system. Employers pay no more than $7 per year per full-time employee into the employment training fund, administered by the ETP.

Getting companies qualified for ETP money is not usually very difficult. If a company has contributed to the state’s payroll tax fund, and if they face out-of-state competition, they can negotiate a contract with the state directly, starting with attending a free orientation on the process.

Information about upcoming orientations is available at the group’s Web site, https://www.etp.ca.gov, or by contacting their local office in North Hollywood at (818) 755-1313. The Sacramento office can be reached at (916) 327-5261.

Most manufacturing companies are automatically eligible for ETP funds, as are some entertainment companies and aerospace defense firms.

Our company works directly with the state. We get funded at $500,000 every year and use that money to retrain employees of corporations who come to us. We do all the work for them, applying to the ETP, getting them qualified for the funds, providing the training for their employees and maintaining their contracts. But the administrative burden is not huge, so a small company can apply to the state directly. Even if they have to hire someone to administer the contract, or they out-source the contract-compliance process, the public money is worth it.

Besides computer training, companies can also get funds for things like refinery training, supplementary health and safety training, and team building through other training agencies who contract with the ETP. We help some clients get money for this kind of training as well, charging them a consulting fee, and we do contract compliance for them if they prefer not to do it in-house.

Another source of public funding that companies often don’t take advantage of is job training funds for new hires who come off of government subsidies. An employer who hires a worker off of welfare and gives them on-the-job training can get federal tax credits and wage subsidies, and the employee’s on-the-job training costs can be covered by the ETP.

Employers should see these programs as an opportunity not only to benefit financially themselves, but also as a way to benefit the community and the people who are out there really wanting to work.

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If your business can provide a lesson to other entrepreneurs, contact Karen E. Klein at the Los Angeles Times, 1333 S. Mayflower Ave., Suite 100, Monrovia, CA 91016 or at kklein6349@aol.com. Include your name, address and telephone number.

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AT A GLANCE

* Company: Contracted Computer Training Inc.

* Owner: Azmina Kanji

* Nature of business: Computer training and consulting.

* Location: 4640 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey 90292

* Web site: https://www.contracted.com

* E-mail address: azmina@contracted.com

* Year found: 1984

* Employees: 27

* Annual revenue: $1.7 million