The Issue of Bonds $60M proposal touted as job generator

For more than a hundred years, Mount Desert Island has been a haven for some of the world’s most prominent scientists, who, like tourists, have been looking for a place to escape in the summertime.

But instead of basking in the physical beauty of the coast, they have immersed themselves in research projects at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, producing biomedical results that have led to new prescription drugs and cures for diseases.

When the laboratory turned 100 years old in 1998, only nine scientists were year-round occupants. The board of directors, aware that the facility was hidden in the shadow of ever-expanding Jackson Laboratory, made a crucial decision – to expand and become known on the national stage as a full-time research facility that happens to have a summer program.

And secure state bond money to do it.

The issuance of bond money has helped the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory grow to 31 full-time scientists in less than five years, according to lab director Dr. John N. Forrest Jr. in a recent interview. And if voters approve a $60 million bond on Tuesday’s ballot, the laboratory anticipates hiring between 15 and 25 professionals with proceeds from its share.

The average salary of those jobs will be $55,000, and most of them could be given to qualified Mainers, he said. Plus the laboratory plans to build a 10,000-square-foot research facility with some of the bond funds.

Tuesday’s referendum is touted as the jobs bond, and one-third of the $60 million price tag is specifically allocated for five state biomedical facilities, including the MDI Biological Laboratory.

Eleven other endeavors will receive funding from the remaining $40 million, including the Maine Farms for the Future Program, the Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Center at the University of Maine, and the Gulf of Maine Research Laboratory in Portland.

The bond, heavily promoted by Gov. John Baldacci, is being called “seed money,” and is expected to grow another $335 million of outside financial support from the federal government and private sources, according to bond supporters.

Baldacci, speaking to the Action Committee of 50 on Friday in Bangor, said the bond was “a smart package” that will bring “immediate returns” to the state’s economy.

“These are serious times,” said Baldacci, about the state’s stagnant economy and how the bond should jump-start it. “We have to work at it with serious solutions.”

MDI Biological Laboratory will share $20 million with its MDI neighbor, Jackson Laboratory, and the Maine Medical Center Research Institute in Portland, the Foundation for Blood Research in Scarborough and the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in Biddeford.

The money will be placed into what’s called the Maine Biomedical Research Fund, and will be administered by the Department of Tourism, Economic and Community Development and by the Maine Biomedical Research Coalition, which Forrest leads.

The Maine Technology Institute also would assist in the distribution of the biomedical funds.

Forrest said the bond is crucial for future growth at the laboratory, which is nationally known for its marine organism-based research models. MDI Bio Lab, as Forrest and others call it, has received $1.5 million from previous bonds authorized for research and development.

With that bond money in hand, he said, the original nine scientists were able to demonstrate the state’s financial commitment to investors and leverage another $11.5 million in federal and private support.

“It’s a return on an investment the likes that I’ve never seen before,” Forrest said.

Baldacci said Friday that by putting the $60 million jobs bond on the June ballot instead of the November one, the biomedical laboratories could solicit federal funds from the National Institutes of Health, which closes its grant-application process in October.

He said the bond money not only will provide jobs, but it eventually will parlay into medicines or cures developed at laboratories throughout the state for diseases such as cystic fibrosis, asthma and cancer.

“It’s not research for research’s sake,” Baldacci said. “It’s research for health’s sake.”

There is no organized opposition to Tuesday’s bond question, but there have been complaints about similar bond requests in recent years that combined many different projects under a single referendum question. Voters have said the practice prevents them from picking and choosing just the projects they like.

Plus, voters have wondered why some of the projects haven’t simply been funded out of the state budget, thus avoiding having to pay interest on top of the original cost.

State Rep. Will Rogers, R-Brewer, said he, too, he doesn’t like the bundling of bond requests all under one question, and he agrees that sometimes projects should be funded out of the state budget.

“If you’re borrowing money, there’s a price you pay for borrowing money,” Rogers said this week.

But under this bond, Rogers said, he also agrees that the biomedical research projects are good ones, creating “a unique cottage industry” for the state.

Alan Day, the chief economist with Banknorth Investment Management Group, said that when looking at bond requests, voters need to examine “what’s the benefit [they’re] going to get from it.”

In the case of biomedical research, voters would be throwing their support behind “a good growth industry for Maine,” Day said.