Utah among states to get funds for job training programs

This week, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Martha Kanter, undersecretary of education, announced nearly $500 million will be given to community colleges across the nation in order to better provide training and workforce development. Among those recipients, Utah will receive $2.7 million over the next three years. The funds will be distributed among Salt Lake Community College, Snow College, Dixie State College, Utah Valley University, Weber State University and the Utah College of Applied Technology. Deseret News

Feds help pay for Utah’s flood damage

Utah will receive federal aid to pay for this spring’s flood damage. President Barack Obama signed a Utah disaster declaration and ordered federal funds to supplement the recovery effort from flooding between April 18 and July 16.

The funds are available to state, tribal and eligible local governments, and certain private nonprofit organizations, on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the flooding in the counties of Beaver, Box Elder, Cache, Daggett, Duchesne, Emery, Millard, Morgan, Piute, Salt Lake, Sanpete, Sevier, Summit, Tooele, Uintah, Utah, Wasatch and Weber, and the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. The state could be eligible for $9.5 million in federal aid. Salt Lake Tribune

Utah wilderness, youth therapy programs closing

A wave of closures and consolidations in wilderness therapy and youth treatment programs in Utah will take nearly 200 jobs from Wayne County alone. Three programs for troubled young people, owned by Aspen Education Group, constitute the biggest employer in the county.

CRC Health Group, Aspen’s California-based parent company, will close two programs in Utah: An equine and behavioral therapy boarding school in Wayne County, and a substance abuse treatment facility for teens in St. George. Another Wayne County drug rehab program will move to Idaho. The state’s longest-running wilderness therapy program, Aspen Achievement Academy, will move from Wayne County to Lehi and merge with another program, Outback Expeditions. A live-in treatment center for teens in Draper will merge with a similar facility in Syracuse. Salt Lake Tribune

Jobs springing up in Utah, from health care to Home Depot

At its medical center in Murray, Intermountain Healthcare formally opened its Homer Warner Center for Informatics Research, a facility dedicated to optimizing the use of information in health and biomedicine. The center employs about 60 people but could add a couple of hundred positions in the next decade, high-paying jobs that in some cases will reach six figures, said Marc Probst, Intermountain Healthcare’s chief technology officer.

On another front, the 23 Home Depot stores in Utah launched a campaign to hire about 500 temporary employees for the busy spring planting season. The best among those part-time hires have chances of being kept on full time by the home improvement retailer, which is looking to hire 60,000 seasonal people nationally, said Marty Tanner, who oversees half of Utah’s Home Depots from an office in the east Sandy store. Salt Lake Tribune