AUGUSTA – After public testimony that shocked lawmakers in 1999, legislation was adopted in 2001 setting up a compensation board to provide cash payments to hundreds of former students at the Baxter School for the Deaf who were physically and sexually abused by the staff.

While more than $12 million has been paid out so far, another $7.1 million was allocated this month to help the Baxter Compensation Authority finish its job.

“It’s the least we can do,” said Senate President Beth Edmonds, D-Freeport, who supported the funding. “This is one of the worst things to happen in our history. What went on down there was horrific, and it never should have happened.”

Hundreds of students at the school between the 1940s and late 1970s suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse that many spoke of for the first time in recent years during public hearings before the Legislature.

In trying to persuade lawmakers to allocate the last of the compensation funds during a hearing last year, Donald Boilard of Waterboro, a student at Baxter in the early 1960s, told of how he was beaten by the school’s superintendent until he passed out. He said the time he spent there was a “living hell” and said others were treated worse.

“The testimony, the stories were so awful I don’t think people wanted to believe them,” Edmonds said recently.

To date, 360 former students have filed claims with the authority with statements spelling out the beatings, punching and whipping they endured. Others were raped and sexually abused, and one told of being hung naked from a tree at the school. Victims have until March 31, 2006, to file claims.

Since the authority was created in 2001, 230 claims have been adjudicated with monetary awards, based on severity of abuse suffered, ranging from a minimum of $25,000 to a maximum of $100,000. Through the first part of July, $12,547,500 had been paid in claims with an average payment of $52,500.

“The panel looks at how severe the abuse was, how egregious it was and how frequent it was,” said John Shattuck, director of the Baxter Compensation Authority. “They look at each case individually. It’s very hard to use an arbitrary set of criteria.”

For example, he said, emotional abuse alone does not qualify for compensation under the law, but it can be used as a factor coupled with physical or sexual abuse in determining the level of compensation.

“A critical question is what kind of impact this had on a person’s life,” he said. “Some people were so traumatized they never completed their education.”

Like the overall student population at the school on Mackworth Island in Falmouth, the victims have come from across the state and are now grown men and women. There were complaints about abuses made over the years by some students, but school officials always denied the allegations, and the state never adequately investigated.

It wasn’t until in 1982 that an investigation by the state Attorney General’s Office found that the physical and sexual abuse allegations were true. The AG’s report named Superintendent Joseph Youngs, now deceased, and the school’s principal, Robert Kelly, as the principal abusers. Both men resigned from their posts while denying the allegations.

No criminal charges were brought against the two or other staff members because the statute of limitations had expired.

Earlier this year, lawmakers appropriated $1 million to the compensation fund and designated the first $7.1 million of any General Fund surplus at the end of the fiscal year that ended June 30 to go to the Baxter Compensation Authority.

“Regardless of our financial situation we have to do the right thing,” Edmonds said. “We as a state have had to step up and take responsibility, and I am proud we have done our duty to these folks.”

Gov. John Baldacci agreed. He said all Mainers share the concern about what happened and the sadness at a terrible chapter in state history.

“This is the final transfer to the authority,” Baldacci said. “That has been such a concern, to have the apologies and the compensation, hopefully we can close that chapter of our history.”

Along with the checks, the victims receive a personal letter of apology signed by the governor, the Senate president and the speaker of the House.

“It’s the least we can do,” Edmonds said, “but I will be very happy when I have signed the last of those letters.”

Shattuck expects that will be by fall 2006.