AUGUSTA – State Rep. Sean Faircloth on Thursday cited a prominent economist in explaining the work of a new commission that’s charged with finding better ways to invest in Maine children ages 5 and younger.

Nobel prize-winning economist James Heckman says investing in young children essentially will gain compounded interest 20 years later, according to Faircloth, D-Bangor.

The commission, whose chairman is Faircloth and consists of lawmakers, business and child care leaders and the state attorney general, held its first meeting Thursday.

After the commission’s four scheduled meetings, Faircloth said he wants an “intelligently crafted” proposal to the Legislature that will permanently put children’s issues on the map.

“The point of this commission is really to look at the whole area of early childhood in a strategic way and come up with a plan that makes sense,” Faircloth said.

In the next couple of months, they will research strategies and come back next legislative session with a proposal to better invest in Maine’s kids.

Attorney General Steven Rowe spoke about the lack of services available for young children, versus the importance of proper care in the first five years. There are 46,000 children with both parents working, and 24,000 licensed slots for quality care, he said. The shortage is most acute for children ages 2 and younger.

“What happens in a child’s early years determines the future,” Rowe said. “We can mediate until the cows come home, but we can’t fix it every time, and often we don’t.”

For every dollar the state invests in school-age children, it invests about 8 cents in each infant and toddler, Rowe said.

“We should call child-care providers neurological engineers because that’s what they’re doing, they’re building kids’ brains,” Rowe said. “The reason that kids get into trouble with drugs, trouble with crime, is that they don’t have social skills. They’re emotionally unable to empathize with another person.”

Faircloth said the commission formed as a result of a bill he sponsored last session, part of a larger package called Invest in ME.

It costs money, he said, but there’s a payoff down the line. It has drawn interest from the business community.

“Versus other investments, it really pays off big time in terms of increased productivity, in terms of decreased crime rate, that it’s really the place to go if you want to get a bang for your investment dollar,” Faircloth said.

The problem is, Faircloth said, the payoff comes 20 years later.

“It’s clear, it’s valid, it’s real, but the investment is required in the near term,” Faircloth said.

In the next few months, the commission will speak with business leaders to enlist a coalition supporting children’s issues.

“It’s hard for politicians to do that because we always think in two-year cycles, and this really says, ‘The evidence is in that it pays off but you have to be willing to invest now,’ ” Faircloth said.

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