After loosing more than $55 million to other state departments several years ago, the state-funded Employment Training Panel is this year set to get some of that money back.

In the state's 2006-07 budget, the ETP was slated to receive $40.3 million for the job training grants it provides to businesses and educational institutions, such as College of the Canyons. However, changes to the budget in June resulted in the ETP getting an additional $12.9 million.

While this may be a step in the right direction, it's only the first of many that must be taken, said Barry Worthington, an economic development analyst for the state.

"It's kind of a misnomer to say that we're getting a budget increase, because it's still only bringing us back up to our normal budget," he said. "A couple of years ago they took ($55 million) to fund other things. The last two years of increased budgets is really only bringing us back to where we should be. And we're still not there."

In 2003-04, the ETP's budget was cut from $75 million to $18 million, with most of it going to the Department of Social Services, Worthington said.

While this year marks the largest budget appropriation - a total of $53 million, up from $37.8 - each successive year since 2003-04 has seen increases.

The additional funding will allow the ETP to contract with more employers and education institutions throughout the state.

As a state-funded program that uses revenues from an employer-paid tax, the ETP provides job-training grants to companies and programs such as COC's Employee Training Institute.

COC's Employee Training Institute has received funding from ETP since 1996 and expects to continue doing so in the future, said Dena Maloney, dean of economic development for COC.

"ETP contracts are a wonderful way for companies to recoup some of its taxes in the from of training support, but it takes a bit of manpower to be able to manage an ETP contract," she said.

In the Santa Clarita Valley, COC's Employee Training Institute works with the Valley Industrial Association and local businesses to develop its array of training programs each year.

"Typically our contracts are anywhere from $400,000 to $500,000 and run for a period of two years," Maloney said.

The most popular programs at COC have continued to be LEAN manufacturing, aerospace manufacturing and biomedical device manufacturing.

Companies put their employees through these training programs to increase productivity and maintain a competitive edge, Maloney said.

"Companies are really looking to be more agile in the marketplace," she said.

Even institutions with larger contracts such as Glendale Community College's depend on ETP funding.

"The money is coming back and that's a really good thing," said Pamela Welden, former director of COC's Employee Training Institute and current program manager of Glendale's Professional Development Center, which received $1.7 million from ETP this year. "Our employers definitely need to get the work force into a position of being competitive again."

Though many smaller ETP contracts have been eliminated in recent years due to a lack of funds, budget increase have helped keep programs like COC's running, Worthington said.

"We're hoping to get the rest of (the money) back next year," he said. "We continue to do more and write more contracts, but we'll keep fighting to get (that money) back."