SARASOTA — A proposed workforce training program could finally create long-term, high-paying jobs in impoverished Newtown if the Sarasota City Commission supports it.

The program, championed by Commissioner Willie Charles Shaw, aims to provide 12 individuals from North Sarasota with training in air conditioning maintenance — a trade that pays $40,000 to $45,000 annually for entry level positions. The four-month program would start in May, with classes three days a week at the Boys and Girls Club in Newtown, where unemployment is notoriously high.

Shaw is partnering with the Argus Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes business and collaboration between the public and private sectors, and Career Edge, an organization dedicated to expanding workforce development, to pitch the idea to the commission and ask for more than $30,000 from the city to launch the program at the board’s April 1 meeting.

“My hope is to see individuals become skill-trained to do these jobs that are going to be in the area,” Shaw said