West Virginia Dept. of Economic Development – Governor’s Guaranteed Work Force Program

About

The Governor\’s Guaranteed Work Force Program (GGWFP) was created in 1991 as a way to help employers defray some of the expense of training their employees, whether new to the job or incumbent workers in need of “upskilling.” We understand that employers need to properly train their employees to be as productive, safe and efficient as possible and GGWFP was created to alleviate some of that financial burden for companies.

Our program reimburses employers for the cost of training, up to $2,000 per employee, per training, or 50 percent of the cost. The calculation of exactly how much can be reimbursed is based on several factors including the average hourly wage of the employees being trained; the average wage of workers in your WorkforceWV region and the costs of training itself.  Our staff collects this information through our application process and if approved, let you know how much we can reimburse when we send you your contract. The program covers the state’s fiscal year, so training needs to be completed and reimbursement requests submitted by June 30, 2022. The program is allocated on a first come, first served basis, so it is better to submit your application as soon after July 1st as possible to get early consideration and secure funding for your program.

There are two steps to the application. First, we will send you our tax verification form, which allows us to ensure that the company is compliant with all state taxes. If you could fill out, sign and notarize and then scan and email the form back to our office, we can submit it for approval which usually only takes a few days. You can mail the form in if you would like but that delays the process. Once the company’s taxes are verified we can send you part two of the application asking you to detail the training the company needs. Since the program runs on a fiscal year, we ask that you get quotes or calculate the anticipated costs of training for the remainder of the fiscal year and submit the request for that amount if possible. After that is done we can review your application and let you know how much of your training expenses can be covered.

It is important that you do not contract or perform training you wish to be reimbursed for before receiving an award and signed contract from our office. Training occurring before a contract is in place cannot be covered by GGWFP funds.