Stephen Bost seeking second Senate term

ORONO — State Sen. Stephen Bost, D-Orono, has announced that he will seek re-election to a second term in the Maine Senate.

Sen. Bost represents Senate District 11 which is made up of the city of Brewer and the towns of Orono, Veazie, Bradley, Milford, Clifton, Eddington, Greenfield, Holden and Orrington. He was elected to the Senate in 1988 after serving three terms in the Maine House of Representatives.

Bost serves as chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Utilities. He also is a member of the Legislature’s Education Committee where he served for six years, two years as House chairman.

. Bost has initiated a program of regularly scheduled constituent meetings throughout the district, and considers advocating for his constituents his No. 1 priority.

As a member of the Education Committee, Bost has been a strong supporter of the University of Maine and Maine’s technical colleges, and has fought to restore proposed cuts in local aid to education. After conducting a financial preview of the Department of Education, Bost worked to develop a series of recommendations designed to generate more money for local school districts by streamlining state departmental prograns in Augusta.

Bost said he was disturbed by proposals to balance the state’s budget by reducing local school aid by $26 million dollars. “I felt that the state bureaucracy should accept its share of the budget cuts. It’s not fair to pass the painful budget decisions on to municipalties,” he said.

Bost has been a longtime advocate and author of legislation designed to reduce property taxes by increasing the state’s share of education costs — a concept that Bost said is gaining support each year. He also sponsored a new law providing reimbursements to local school districts that incur financial hardship serving out-of-district special education students.

The 33-year old senator serves as chairman of the Special Committee responsible for designing the mechanics of the “One-Stop-Shopping” program for student financial aid. Bost was the chief advocate for locating the consolidated financial aid program within the Finance Authority of Maine. Bost said the program will help students and their families sift through the current maze of financial aid options.

Bost was instrumental in the development of a comprehensive legislative package designed to crack down on drug abuse in Maine. He sponsored two bills, now law, reducing the amount of cocaine and heroin needed to make a conviction in drug trafficking.

Bost played a key role in the development of last year’s solid-waste and recycling package, sponsoring legislation that contributed to the creation of the Maine Waste Management Agency.

He has served as chairman of the Commission on School Funding and State Law Tax, as well as chairman of the Teacher Training Commission. He currently serves on the Advisory Commission on Radioactive Waste, the Council of State Goverment Hydropower Task Force, the federal Assembly’s Committee on Energy and the Subcommittee on Communications. He is a member of the National Conference of State Legislature’s Committee on State and Local Relations, NCSL’s Committee on Education and the Education Commission of the States. He has served on the Maine Job Training Council, the Joint Select Committee on Alcoholism Services and is a member of the Penobscot County Conservation Association and the Maine Providers for the Severely Mentally Ill.

Bost works as a mental health service provider in the Bangor area. He and his wife live on Fernwood Street in Orono.