|
 Regional Innovation Grant
Advantage
Valley’s Regional Innovation Grant (RIG)
proposal, filed in partnership with
WorkForce West Virginia, has been tabled by
the Obama administration. U.S. Department of
Labor officials noted that the proposal was
very strong and would likely have been
funded if concerns about the U.S. economy
had not been given top priority.
Advantage
Valley had created a core regional
leadership team comprised of senior
administrators and officials from the
workforce system, economic development and
education in Ohio, Kentucky and West
Virginia.
Advantage
Valley had hoped that grant funding would
have provided a data-driven analysis of
regional assets and economic development
initiatives that would have been used to
create a regional strategic plan that would
have included asset mapping among other
features.
U.S.
Department of Labor officials were
sufficiently impressed with the proposal
that they offered alternative funding
sources. Since the original grant was in
partnership with the State of West Virginia,
Advantage Valley will need to wait for
retiring WorkForce Development Executive
Director Ronald E. Radcliff’s replacement to
be named before moving forward on this
project.
|
