AUGUSTA – The Legislature’s Appropriations Committee members heard 16 requests for funding Thursday, all focused on education. The committee heard more than 60 total requests this week.

Thursday’s proposals requested dollars for mentoring programs, community colleges, work force development programs and programs within the University System.

The following have local impact:

School breakfast

Sen. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, is asking for ongoing General Fund appropriations of $130,000 for the Department of Education’s school breakfast program.

“A hungry child will not learn as well as one who’s well fed,” testified Rotundo, Senate chairwoman of the committee.

Rotundo said the state helped subsidize school breakfasts in the past. Initially, money came from a settlement that the state received in an anti-trust suit. When that money ran out last year, the state was able to give temporary help.

Helen Rankin, legislative chair for Maine School Food Service Association, said many students don’t eat breakfast at home.

“Teachers have told me personally that before the school breakfast program started some children came to school with so little energy they fell asleep with their head on their desk,” Rankin said.

Nursing issues

There are not enough nurses and not enough people who can teach nurses in Maine, says Rep. Elaine Makas, D-Lewiston.

Makas has requested $50,000 of state money for each of the next two years to finance the nursing education loan repayment program, something established by the state in 2005 but never funded.

The money would be used to encourage nurses to obtain higher degrees by giving RNs who get a master’s degree $6,000 to repay their loans, and those who get a doctoral degree, $9,000.

“This is a critical and timely issue,” Makas said in her testimony. “We are experiencing a serious shortage of nurses in our state, yet we have many bright, willing individuals who are anxious to enter this field.”

Marianne Rodgers, interim dean of the College of Nursing and Health Professionals at the University of Southern Maine, said in written testimony that faculty in her program is aging – 74 percent is older than 50.

“It is imperative that nursing programs begin replacing retiring faculty members with younger faculty who have the appropriate education and practice credentials to educate a future nursing work force that will provide the highest quality of care.”

After-school needs

A conundrum for working parents: School ends at 3; work ends at 6: What to do with the kids?

Rep. Christopher Barstow, D-Gorham, has submitted a bill to appropriate $500,000 a year for grants for communities that do not have after school programs.

Attorney General Steven Rowe has said previously that most juvenile crime occurs in those after-school hours.

Deb Chase, director of the Maine AfterSchool Network at the University of Maine at Farmington, said only 15 percent of Maine’s students have access to after-school programs.

Chase said after-school programs “can provide opportunities for positive youth development; homework help and tutoring, work readiness and college prep skills,” she stated in written testimony. “High quality programs for middle and high school students have an impact on graduation rates.”

L-A College

Rotundo is also seeking $3 million to complete an addition to the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College.

Completing the building, Rotundo said, would address the issue of community college overcrowding.

In her testimony Thursday, Rotundo said that the college is one of the fastest growing in the state, and is one of the biggest economic development forces.

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