Many state governments offer the business community training incentives, but often these programs go underutilized and overlooked. The California Employment Training Panel (ETP) is one such program. Established in 1982, the program provides funding for state businesses to train their workers. Funding comes from an employment training tax of $7 per year per employee, paid by every employer in the state. Since its inception, the program has paid out $1.4 billion, with $90 million allocated for the 2015-2016 fiscal year, ending June 30. As it stands, there’s about $18 million left over. The problem is most organizations are unaware that this resource even exists. “Probably over 95 percent of the people I talk to have never heard of it,” said Larry Mandell, who works for the Training Refund Group, an organization that helps companies secure ETP funding for employee training. “More than 80,000 companies in the state have already received benefits from the program.” Mandell says that training costs are often prohibitively expensive, particularly when organizations are unaware of the state aid that is available.