YES ON QUESTION 5

Do you favor a $19,000,000 bond issue to make repairs, upgrades and other facility improvements and enhance access for students with disabilities and upgrade classroom equipment at various campuses of the University of Maine System; the Maine Maritime Academy; and the Maine Community College System, which was formerly the Maine Technical College System, and to provide grants to construct and renovate public libraries and to improve community access to electronic resources?

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The state’s public colleges and universities are experiencing record growth, so a bond issue to raise money for needed improvements to classrooms, laboratories and other buildings couldn’t come at a better time. Question 5 would raise $19 million to be split between the Maine Community Colleges, the University of Maine System, Maine Maritime Academy and the Maine State Library. It should be approved by voters.

It has become clich? for state leaders to tout higher education as the key to Maine’s, and its citizens’, success. But, this is not hyperbole. Study after study has shown that those with college degrees will earn much more than their peers without them. Recent experience has shown that the state’s colleges and universities play a vital role in retraining workers laid off from an ever-shrinking manufacturing sector. Whether for a former papermaker retrained as a medical technician or a former shoemaker retrained as a counselor, these schools are giving Maine workers new beginnings.

This work cannot be done without state support such as that sought through Question 5, which voters should bear in mind has been pared back from what the colleges and universities originally requested.

Most of the bond money, $12 million, would go to the Maine Community College System, which saw a 16 percent increase in enrollment this year and a 17 percent jump last year. Just this year, when the schools’ names were changed from technical to community colleges, the number of students coming directly from high school has increased 35 percent. Because of the unprecedented growth, the schools have devoted most of their resources to adding faculty and staff to keep up with the increase in students. This has left the schools with $35 million worth of deferred maintenance. This bond, with much of the money directed to Southern and Eastern Maine Community Colleges which have seen the most growth, issue will help ease that problem.

Of the $4.5 million set aside for the university system, $2 million will be used to renovate and create additional classroom space at the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College, which also has experienced rapid growth. The remaining $2. 5 million will pay for health and safety improvements to science labs at all seven campuses.

The $1 million designated for Maine Maritime Academy will fund renovations and improvements to buildings as well as technological advancements.

The Maine State Library will use $1 million of its $1.5 million share of the bond money to offer grants to public libraries across the state for renovation and construction projects and to improve community access to technology. The remaining $500,000 will be used to fund projects at the state’s cultural agencies including the Maine Arts Commission and Maine Historic Preservation Commission.

Aside from the money, the bond package also marks a maturation of the relationship among the state’s higher education institutions. It is the first time that the community colleges and universities have worked together on a bond. More importantly, the schools are working together behind the scenes. A student who meets academic qualifications at Southern Maine Community College, for example, is now guaranteed admission to the University of Southern Maine. This is the type of seamless transition that makes it easier for students to focus more on their educational and career goals and less on academic red tape as they transition from one system to another.

With these types of initiatives, higher education deserves a positive vote on Question 5.