AUGUSTA (AP) – Cuts in federal funding arising from a probe into the identification of eligible students have put Maine’s Migrant Education Program in jeopardy.

School districts will receive no further MEP funding for school year 2003-2004, Maine Department of Education Commissioner Susan Gendron wrote superintendents, and there will be no funding at the beginning of the next school.

The Maine program received $4.1 million in federal funds in 2001 and served 1,999 migrant families and 9,475 migrant children in Maine between June 1, 2002, and May 14, 2003, the most recent figures made available by the state Department of Education, which oversees the program.

Lee Umphrey, spokesman for Gov. John Baldacci, confirmed Thursday that an ongoing criminal investigation of the state DOE’s migrant education program by the Office of the Inspector General assigned to the U.S. Department of Education has produced “potentially devastating” implications for migrant children.

“While the IOG winds down the investigation, the DOE is working with them to minimize the impact,” Umphrey said. “It’s going to be (massive), but at the same time the commissioner is being proactive and instituting an action plan aligned with what the IOG wants.”

Gendron has advised school districts that the state has been forced to revise its assessment of the number of children in the program in every school year since 2000-2001.

The dramatically smaller assessment of the migrant student population means Maine’s federal migrant education program funding will also decrease, Gendron said.

“Gutted” was the word being used to characterize the reductions Thursday by some school and state officials.

In the event any federal funding was identified for 2004-2005, the money could only be spent on summer programs and supplemental tutoring or related extended school day programs, Gendron added.

She said an external audit of Maine’s MEP program would also have to be conducted and a plan for the delivery of educational services to migrant workers would have to be developed to direct the future use of federal MEP funds.

Precise details surrounding what Gendron has described as a “misidentification or overidentification” of migrant students in Maine remain shrouded in secrecy as the federal OIG probe nears conclusion.

Umphrey expects investigators to complete their findings by July. The probe began a year ago and was triggered by a complaint filed by an unidentified state employee in regard to certification for migrant education services in the Danforth area.

In the meantime, questions remain as to whether the state will pick up the costs of the program or allow children to be denied access to educational services.

“The commissioner is putting an action plan forward in hopes of minimizing the costs to Maine and the impact to the program. This is a situation that was created years ago by mismanagement and now we’re paying for it,” Umphrey said.