CALAIS – A reduction in staff will affect some traditional programs, but college officials expect that some new programs will help increase enrollment at Washington County Technical College this year.

WCTC President William Flahive said Friday that he had to lay off some teachers and reassign others, which he attributed to a decline in enrollment in programs such as business studies. The school has 27 faculty members.

“We are concerned about the layoffs, and there have been grievances filed,” said Eddie Smith, president of the WCTC faculty association. The union leader declined to elaborate on those grievances.

“We received notification from the college on three direct layoffs,” Smith added. “One was a reduction in force and the other two were nontenured layoffs. Two other instructors have been reassigned, and their programs will not run this year. Another position has gone from full time to half time. The layoffs are contingent upon enrollment in the programs. If there is an increase in enrollment, perhaps positions will be restored.”

Addressing the issue of one of the nontenured positions, Flahive said it was a personnel matter and it was inappropriate for him to comment. He said he was not aware of a second nontenured faculty member being laid off. The college president said the only other nontenured instructor to leave did so voluntarily to accept a position in private industry.

Smith said later Friday that the college had informed the union that there were two nontenured layoffs and those were the figures to which he had referred.

Flahive said one instructor had been reassigned for one year, and that no other instructors had been reassigned. But Smith said that the marine mechanics course had been incorporated into the boat building program and that instructor was reassigned to boat building.

Although there were some problems with class size for a few programs, Flahive said there were other areas of growth. He said he believed the technical college was doing well.

In June, the college learned that the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development’s applied technology development center program had awarded $750,000 to the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center and its partners to establish three aquaculture business incubator facilities in Maine. In addition to WCTC, sites will be located in Walpole and Franklin, both associated with the University of Maine.

The grant will allow the college to build an incubator system at the Marine Technology Center in Eastport. The facility will be available to tenants interested in raising urchins or scallops. “We are going to build this incubator building to support people who have entrepreneurial businesses,” he said.

Although there is declining enrollment in some study areas, Flahive said the new nursing program is growing, with 60 students applying for the fall program. The clinical portion of the class can only accept 16 students. “All of the colleges have waiting lists for nursing. … [So] we are trying to expand the clinical sites,” he said.

Another area that is experiencing a sharp increase in enrollment is the boat-building program. “We’ve got the biggest class we’ve ever had in boat building since I have been here,” he said. He said the program is approaching 30 students in the field of boat building and marine mechanics. He said the school has experienced growth in other areas including computer technology and early childhood education.

Last year, enrollment at WCTC hovered around 280 full-time students. This year, Flahive said, the school hopes to have 300 to 350 full-time students at the start of this semester.

The college president acknowledged that one of the most difficult phases of his job was to “move assets from where they are to where they are needed.” If the college experiences diminishing enrollment in one area, he said, it requires that teachers be reassigned.

“It’s not easy. It’s not comfortable,” he said. “But if I have a computer program that has 42 students, and I have one teacher, and I have another program that has 30 students and has four teachers, then I have to somehow get those assets moved [to the new program].”

During the past few years, Flahive said the school has attracted some very talented instructors. “I am pleased with the progress we’ve made, and we’ve worked really, really hard on enrollment,” he said.