By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

Maine schools could lose programs that keep schools safe, prepare poor kids for college and boost literacy.

President Bush’s budget proposal, released Monday, cuts national education funding by nearly 1 percent and eliminates 48 programs, including several used by Maine schools.

Federal grants for vocational education and Safe and Drug Free Schools would be gone. So would funding for Even Start, which helps boost family literacy, and GEAR UP, which prepares poor teenagers for college. Other programs, such as Adult Basic and Literacy Education, would stay, but with half the federal funding.

The cuts would have “draconian implications,” said Patrick Phillips, Maine’s deputy education commissioner.

“Our hope is as the budget is addressed by Congress, a number of changes come about,” Phillips said.

State officials were still analyzing Bush’s proposed budget Tuesday and didn’t know exactly how much Maine would lose from key programs.

But Phillips said the state received more than $8 million this year from four of the 48 programs on the chopping block.

Local systems receive grants from many of the programs set to be eliminated. Schools use that money to hire consultants and counselors, run programs and buy equipment.

Auburn, for example, receives about $25,000 a year in Safe and Drug Free Schools grants. It used that money for six different projects, including civil rights teams, a bullying-prevention program and an expert to work with students and teachers on harassment issues.

Andie Locke, Auburn’s safe schools coordinator, said the money is vital to city schools.

“I don’t know what we would do without it. I don’t know how we would fund those programs,” she said.

While Maine would lose some of its federal programs, it would receive more money overall. In 2006, Maine would get a 4 percent increase in education funding, for a total of $465 million, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

But that increased funding would be earmarked for testing, incentives for teachers who raise test scores and Pell Grants for college students. It could not be used to replace the programs being eliminated.

At the state Education Department, Phillips said the state appreciates the increased funding it could get for assessments. But he worries that greater testing will come at the expense of teaching people to read or getting low-income students to go to college.

“Is there a higher priority in the state for us right now?” he said.

He and others said Tuesday that they hoped Bush’s full proposal wouldn’t make it far in Congress.

In a statement released Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Republican who sits on the Finance Committee, vowed to fight for at least some of the programs.

“We should re-examine our nation’s overall priorities as cuts to our nation’s education funding would amount to mortgaging our future to finance today,” she said.