AUGUSTA – Thousands of jobs across the state are going unfilled because the Maine Community College System doesn’t have the money to expand occupational programs in such fields as health care, boat building, construction and machine tools.

“We have skilled workers needed all over the state,” MCCS President John Fitzsimmons said Wednesday.

Speaking at the first meeting of a study panel created by Gov. John Baldacci to guide the next phase of the community college system’s growth, Fitzsimmons said people should “focus on the obvious. For some reason, we get excited about what can be instead of what is already here.”

A ribbon cutting for a new business generates lots of excitement and yet it’s difficult to get policymakers and legislators to see that an investment in MCCS’ health care programs would produce the 8,000 workers needed over the next six years, Fitzsimmons said.

“Why not address the jobs that exist right now? Why not take the people who live in Maine, upgrade their skills and get them into the good paying jobs that already exist?” he said.

The 12-member advisory group of top business, labor and economic development leaders has been charged with assessing all the occupations requiring one and two years of college and analyzing the gap that exists between the jobs that are available and the number of graduates MCCS is producing.

Members will also look at where the students will come from and what MCCS should be doing to spur economic development. They will report their findings and make recommendations to the governor and MCCS trustees this fall.

“Their work is so critical that it will lead the system for the next five to seven years,” Fitzsimmons said in an interview after the meeting.

It’s not only the health care industry that needs workers, according to the president. The marine industry also is poised “to be a very big growth industry,” he said. “We need to gear up to serve that industry even better. Right now our efforts are too lean.”

Trained workers are needed for the computer, business and automotive technician industries, too. But without additional state financial support, MCCS can’t expand its programs, hire more faculty and accept more students.

“We’re woefully under serving the private sector,” he said during the meeting at the system office in Augusta. “We’re way too small to serve the industries in Maine and we’re going to have to grow.”

He pointed out that enrollment has increased by 42 percent at MCCS since it became a community college system three years ago. But it has seen no more than a 6 percent increase in state appropriations.

“We’ve gone as far as we can go and we need some investment to take us to the next level.”

More information about the task force can be found online at: www.mccs.me.edu