AUGUSTA – Penn National received initial approval Thursday to bring five slot machines to Bangor this fall for training purposes.

Penn hopes to conduct the training at the former Miller’s Restaurant and Post Time off-track betting parlor on Main Street, where the company is gearing up to open a temporary slots facility in November, Jon Johnson, general manager of Penn’s Bangor operations, said Thursday during a meeting of the Maine Gambling Control Board. But renovations may make the Miller’s site unusable.

Should construction not allow for that, Johnson said, the company would house the five machines in the grandstand at Bangor Raceway.

“They will not be available to the general public and will be kept in an area under lock and key and under surveillance cameras,” Johnson said of the training slots.

Assistant Attorney General Bill Stokes said that it appeared the request can be granted because the training machines would not be issuing cash, tokens or other winnings. As such, the training machines aren’t technically slot machines and as such, don’t have to be licensed, he said.

The Pennsylvania-based racing and gaming company is purchasing the Miller’s facility for $3.8 million. The purchase includes the off-track betting operation now located in the restaurant’s lower level, which will move into the recently refurbished grandstand at Bangor Raceway, located at city-owned Bass Park.

The temporary facility, which will house up to 500 slot machines, will serve as Penn’s base of operations for about three years, until its permanent facility in the vicinity of Bass Park for up to 1,500 slots is completed.

Construction at Miller’s will begin soon. Barring any snags with the licensing process, Penn plans to have its temporary facility up and running by November or December.

Johnson said the company plans to begin hiring the 100 full-time employees needed for the temporary facility this fall. He said a job fair likely will be held in September or thereabouts. The state law authorizing slots in Bangor requires that the slots operator provide training on the servicing and operation of slot machines before the racino operation can begin.

In her motion to allow the training machines to be set up, board member Jean Deighan of Bangor stipulated that a maximum of five machines could be set up, that the machines must be registered with the state and secured at all times and that they be used for training purposes only. In addition, public access must be restricted.

Her motion was approved in a 4-1 vote. Board member Peter Danton opposed it because he saw the move as opening the door for allowing slots at the state’s off-track betting facilities. He predicted that legislation to that end would be submitted during the next legislative session.

In other meeting business, Executive Director Robert Welch provided a briefing on how the state’s budget crunch will affect the state’s recently established gambling control unit.

The board and its staff have been given the job of getting the state’s first racetrack casino up and running in Bangor, the only community in Maine that won the needed state and local voter approval. The racino being developed by Penn National Gaming Inc. will be the first of its kind in Maine.

As it stands, the board began this fiscal year with a $1.75 million budget, but because several legal issues needed to be ironed out, delaying the Bangor project, much of the funding earmarked for gambling control staff was taken back to help the state deal with a larger than projected shortfall.

As a result, a freeze was put on hiring six additional employees for the unit, which now has four employees.

The state’s financial outlook has not improved since then. To that end, the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee cut the board’s budget by 5 percent for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1. For the next fiscal year, state lawmakers cut the budget by 5 percent in personnel costs and another 5 percent in all other budget areas.

In dollars, $19,829 had to be pared from the proposed budget for the coming fiscal year, leaving an operating budget of $951,152. Welch said the reductions will come in the area of office furniture. He said such items as filing cabinets and desks will be purchased from surplus, when possible.

A total of $81,238 was cut from the budget for the next fiscal year, leaving a $1,624,775 budget. The cuts comprised a second clerk typist position, at $55,738, and a $25,500 reduction in the equipment account.

“These are extraordinary times,” Welch said. “Cuts were not made to be hurtful. Cuts were made because they needed to be made.”

The news was troubling to board members, who questioned whether budget cuts imposed for the next two fiscal years would impinge upon their ability to regulate gambling.

“This is a pretty big deal for the state of Maine,” Deighan said. “Can we do this correctly? We’ve got to be able to hold up our end of the bargain for the people of the state of Maine.”

Welch assured the board the budget cuts will not adversely affect the “mission critical” aspect of the unit’s work.