West Virginia Universitys Institute for Public Affairs has received a $10,000 Flex-E-Grant from the West Virginia Development Office to promote and expand the Institute for Public Affairs/County CommissionersEducation and Training Series.


The training series provides West Virginias county commissioners an opportunity to attend workshops on all aspects of county governance, including financial management, economic development, human resources, professional ethics, conflict resolution and election law. The program began in 1993 and is administered and co-sponsored by the Institute for Public Affairs and the County Commissioners Association of West Virginia.


“The County CommissionersEducation and Training Series provides West Virginias county commissioners an unprecedented opportunity to interact with and learn from the Universitys finest faculty as well as leading practitioners drawn from state and local government agencies and organizations from across the state,”said Robert Dilger, director of the Institute. 


“We are very happy that the West Virginia Development Office has provided these funds to assist us in developing workshops of particular interest to county commissioners residing in economically distressed counties,”Dilger added.”This education program is a fine example of how West VirginiaUniversity works with the states policymaking community to improve the lives of West Virginians.”


The CountyCommissionersEducation and Training Seriesnext session will be Jan. 8-10 at the Holiday Inn in Bridgeport. Among the many workshops that will be presented are ones that focus on the development of comprehensive strategies to address the community and economic development needs of economically distressed areas.


The Institute for Public Affairs is a research public service arm of WVU s Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.


The Flex-E-Grant program, co-sponsored by the U.S. Appalachian Regional Commission and the Benedum Foundation, provides nonprofit and educational associations with grants of up to $10,000 to provide economic development, community development and leadership training to community leaders residing in counties designated as economically distressed by the commission. This is the second straight year the Institute for Public Affairs has received the maximum grant award.