SC’s McMaster to spend $17M in COVID aid on job training, asks lawmakers to spend more
Gov. Henry McMaster asked South Carolina lawmakers Wednesday to spend $124 million of federal COVID-19 aid to send up to 15,000 people to technical college for job training or associate degree programs.
The money, from the American Rescue Plan Act signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year, would cover the cost of scholarships for any adult or recent high school graduate in the state and comes as employers struggle to find workers to fill high-demand jobs.
“We know we have a lot of jobs and ... employees are scarce. So we are going to fill those jobs with people who want to go to work. Because of disruptions a lot of people did not go back to work. Where are they? They’re still out there,” McMaster said in Duncan at AFL Global, which manufactures fiber optic cable.
“We’re going to put them back to work in good high paying jobs that are determined by the demand that is felt by the manufacturers (and) by the employers.”
The proposal dovetails off of $12 million McMaster spent from discretionary education-related dollars that was part of federal COVID relief legislation signed into law by former president Donald Trump.
Beyond his legislative spending request, McMaster plans to spend an additional $17 million out of his Governor’s Emergency Education Relief pot for job training. By the end of the year, about 5,000 people are expected to have completed retraining programs in the state.
The scholarships will be used toward associate degrees and credentialing programs for high-demand jobs, such as manufacturing, health care, computer science, information technology, trucking and construction. McMaster also wants to require people in the program to work, volunteer or take a financial literacy course at a technical college to be part of the job training program.
“This is a program that is no cost to the participants. It’s not means based and it’s no cost,” McMaster said.
In addition to the $124 million of federal COVID-19 money recommended for the job training program, McMaster has already recommended $453 million in COVID-10 relief pay for highway construction projects.
The governor’s proposal includes widening Interstate 26, between Columbia and Charleston, and building Interstate 73 to Myrtle Beach. He also asked lawmakers to spend $500 million on rural water and wastewater projects.
The state ultimately has about $2.5 billion in federal COVID-19 dollars to allocate. The General Assembly is expected to tackle that spending next year after they return to Columbia in January.
McMaster told reporters Wednesday his office is still studying recommendations that his committee, AccelerateSC, proposed last year.
“We’re being careful,” McMaster said. “We’re moving cautiously just as we have throughout.”
This story was originally published November 3, 2021 at 4:39 PM.
