Do you favor a $36,700,000 bond issue to make improvements to the state’s public universities, the Maine Maritime Academy and other learning centers?

This hefty bond is what happens when a state wants its university systems to perform as well as those in other states but refuses to fund them as well as those in other states. A backlog of basic projects and upgrades essential to higher education builds up and the only way to solve it is to ask voters to borrow the money. Voters should say yes emphatically enough so that lawmakers conclude that trying to save money by underfunding education is not, ultimately, in the public interest.

As befitting any good bond question, the $36.7 million goes all over the state. The University of Maine at Presque Isle would get $5.6 million to pay for some of the cost of a health and physical education complex. The University of Southern Maine would receive $8 million to expand its community education building and add library space. Maine Maritime is in for $4 million to build and renovate dorms, classrooms and laboratories. Nearly $2 million would go to the Western Maine University Center to properly equip classrooms there. In Orono, the University of Maine finally could begin on the arts center it has been trying to fund for a decade, at least.

All of the state money would be matched, 1-to-2, by private funding, making tax dollars go considerably further and giving each of the universities an attractive way to raise money. It has been pointed out before, but this wide range of construction projects in a time of recession is also an important short-term boost to Maine’s economy. The long-term boost comes in having more people able to learn more skills and obtain more valuable careers.

The pursuit of a strong economy to support a healthy quality of life is, at one level, a race among states to provide opportunities for businesses to develop. Education is an essential part to being successful in this, yet traditionally Maine has funded its public institutions of higher education at levels below the national average. Maine must not only keep up in the race if it hopes to support even some of the services it enjoys, but catch up, which is much harder to do.

The results of not investing adequately have long been seen. Children receive the educations here and leave to find work

elsewhere. Shifts in population slowly erode towns and, with each closing elementary school, communities wither. The state tax burden spirals upward on those still able to pay.

Question 6 is a worthy attempt to help Maine run faster and stronger not only

for the sake of its economy but for its civil society and the integrity of its communities now and long into the future.