By BRIAN TUMULTY
Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON - President Bush wants to spend $250 million to help the nation's 1,100 community colleges train workers for a 21st century economy.

"It's $250 million of direct money to help on these programs which match workers with employers," Bush said Wednesday during a visit to Owens Community College in suburban Toledo, Ohio. "There's no better place to do that than the community college system. The community college system is flexible. The community college system is local. The community college system accepts input."

The administration wants to expand a small Labor Department program, dubbed the High Growth Jobs Initiative, to help communities train people for industries where job shortages are expected in the coming decade.

"For the models and demonstrations we have been doing at the national level, we have focused on industries like health care, biotechnology, construction and the like," Emily DeRocco, head of the Labor Department's Employment Training Administration, said Friday.

The targeted industries will be determined at the local level. And some communities that have lost manufacturing jobs might focus their efforts on fortifying their traditional economic base with programs focusing on lean manufacturing and other ways to upgrade skills.

The president's proposal comes in response to criticism that the current flagship program for federal job training requires too much paperwork for community colleges to participate as fully as they could.

But only a year ago, the Bush administration proposed cutting the largest direct aid initiative to community colleges, the Perkins program for technical and vocational training, from $1.3 billion to about $1 billion.

Congress rejected those cuts; the total is unchanged for the current fiscal year.

"Definitely, we applaud the direction, and we think it would be great if it's new money," said James Hermes of the American Association of Community Colleges. "There's nothing quite like it right now in terms of direct support and help for the colleges in building up their training."

Community colleges largely receive federal aid indirectly, either through their students who get financial aid from Pell grants and federal loans, or money funneled through local job training centers.

But the administration has been mum on whether the $250 million will be new money or a reallocation of existing money.

"The details of the budgetary support will be part of the president's budget," DeRocco said.

Some work force training advocates are concerned that the administration's proposed 2005 budget, scheduled for release Feb. 2, will propose reductions in money for employment services and for dislocated workers to help pay for the new initiative.

In addition, the administration already has indicated its intent to end the job training aspect of the H-1B visa program, which allows up to 65,000 foreign nationals into the United States annually to work in occupations with a shortage of qualified U.S. citizens.

Employers had been charged hefty fees for these visas, and a significant part of that money went for job training.

"In the past year, they have drastically reduced the fee to about $130 down from $1,000," said Executive Director Andy Van Kleunen of the Workforce Alliance, a job-training advocacy group.

The unused training money from the H-1B visa program might be redirected into Bush's new community college program, Van Kleunen said.

"The Workforce Alliance has no issue with people from overseas coming to work in this country," he said, "but we think people in this country need to be put into programs to train for those jobs as well."