R&D investment

Legislators have two ways of looking at the effect of Maine’s investment in research and development during the last four years. They can examine the important work being done in, for instance, the fields of medicine, the environment, biotechnology and engineering. Or they can look at R&D’s effect on the Maine economy, where tens of millions of dollars in state money have yielded hundreds of millions in outside grants, supporting existing Maine businesses and creating hundreds of new jobs.

Given that the latest federal assessment of states’ economic heath, measured in gross state product, found Maine resting uncomfortably in an anemic 45th place, consider just the latter. There, the outcome of the investment is clear: Maine’s growing R&D industry has used state money to hire Maine-based contractors to build facilities that have created taxpaying jobs to allow college graduates to stay in Maine and contribute to their communities. And these aren’t jobs that rise and fall with the whim of the stock market; they are long-term sustainable employment on which Maine people can build careers.

No one knows this better than Gov. Angus King, who has been an early and consistent supporter of R&D. Legislators know it too, and several, including Appropriations Chair Sen. Jill Goldthwait, have made funding of the latest R&D request a priority. That request, $10 million for the state’s biomedical coalition, would go toward several building projects, including a major one at The Jackson Laboratory and smaller ones at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine and at the Foundation for Blood Research.

Lawmakers by now have a pretty good sense that they cannot find $10 million in General Fund money, but they can and should find another $8 million in a bond request to go along with the $2 million Gov. King put in the first year of his budget. The Legislature would then wait until January to see whether more funding was available for the second year of the biennium.

This is a fair balance between investing and budget reality. But it should not stop with the bond proposal. In commenting on Maine’s dismal gross state product growth between 1992 and 1999, State Planning Office economist Michael Montagna said the states with the highest GSP’s are those that appeal to the young and well-educated, and that investment in research can help. “The economy, to some extent, is all about ideas,” he said.

The state money for R&D turns those ideas into actual research, creating the jobs and the attraction for people to move to Maine.