$930,000 GRANT WILL BOLSTER HIGH-TECH HOLLYWOOD JOBS.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Staff Writer

The state joined forces with Hollywood on Thursday to stem the loss of production work abroad through a $930,000 grant to train video editors, graphic artists and others with the high-tech skills.

The Employment Training Panel grant, drawing on unemployment taxes paid by employers, allows Los Angeles' film commission to add 570 openings to the retraining program it launched earlier this year for 300 high-tech workers.

``We need to make sure our employees have the skills to maintain their competitive edge,'' said Kathleen Milnes, senior vice president of the film commission, the Entertainment Industry Development Corporation. ``Our companies need to be strong and healthy to compete with those outside the state.''

In all, the Employment Training Panel funnels about $43 million, about half of its funds, to companies and retraining programs in Los Angeles County each year.

Entertainment-related jobs are an increasingly important focus of the agency, accounting for about $18 million of the grants it issues across the state each year, said the agency's marketing director, Charles Lundberg.

``The purpose is to make sure California's work force remains the top in the world so business stays here and doesn't get exported to Canada or other places,'' Lundberg said.

Canada has alarmed Hollywood by using tax breaks and other incentives to draw runaway production.

To keep those jobs in the Los Angeles region, the state has contracted directly with large companies like Universal Studios, Technicolor and Sony Imageworkers to retrain their workers.

Many smaller production houses found the grant process too involved to justify the retraining of just one or two employees, prompting the film commission to assume those administrative duties, said Milnes of the EIDC.

Training is handled by Weynand Training International, Montana Edit and Gnomon Inc. School of Visual Effects, with emphasis on production, animation and graphics and broadcast design.

The EIDC launched its work force development program earlier this year with a $517,000 state grant that retrained 300 employees from 105 companies.

The EIDC hopes to coordinate the retraining of about 1,000 workers from more than 200 companies by 2001.

With an estimated 250,000 vacancies in the high-tech sector, programs like this also help employers tap the native work force instead of importing workers from other countries, a move that requires them to pay visa fees.

``We have seen more technological changes within the industry in the last five years than the previous 75 years put together,'' said Gavin Koon, executive director of Scenic, Title and Graphic Artists Local 816.