Support Community College

The Maine Community College System is central to the growth of our state’s rural economy, from York County Community College in the south to our own Northern Maine Community College in the north. Our community colleges both train our future workforce and re-train our current workforce. That’s why I have sponsored two important bills this session in the Legislature.
    The first bill is LD 189, “An Act to Invest in the Allied Health Center at the Northern Maine Community College.” This bill would provide $500,000 of funding next year to NMCC to help construct the Allied Health Center in Presque Isle. The total cost of the project would be $4 million, so NMCC has also begun a major capital campaign to raise the remaining funds. By combining state resources with private gifts, the project is a model “public-private partnership.”
The project will mean a complete renovation of Andrews Hall on the NMCC campus. When the renovations are complete, the Allied Health Center will have upgraded science laboratories, training equipment, computer labs, lecture halls and classrooms. The project will put NMCC, which is already the largest provider of nurses in northern Maine, in a position to meet our area’s increasing demand for health care workers.
The project is especially important in light of data that shows that over the next decade the population of people 65 years and older in Aroostook County will grow by 24 percent. As that generation retires, there will be an increased need for young people to fill health care jobs. NMCC is aware of this trend and should be supported in training students who will work in this important sector in the future.
I also presented a second bill that would be beneficial to NMCC. LD 291 would provide $250,000 a year to the “Maine Quality Centers” program, which provides on-site workforce development to Maine employers. To date, more than 200 businesses across the state have worked with the program to re-train more than 11,000 Maine workers.
The Maine Quality Centers program has done great work in Aroostook County. Recently, Aroostook Starch in Fort Fairfield and Louisiana-Pacific Corporation in New Limerick participated in the program. Both needed workers who were trained specifically for their companies, and the program trained 71 workers who are now living and working in our area. If my bill is passed by the Legislature, it will allow 1,000 additional workers across Maine to receive this sort of retraining each year.
Both of these bills are good investments in Aroostook County’s economy.
I welcome your comments on these and any other issues. I can be contacted by mail (6C Third St., Presque Isle, ME 04769), by phone (551-3097) or by e-mail (RepJeremy.Fischer@legislature.maine.gov).