LIMESTONE (AP) – The chairman of the former Base Realignment and Closing Commission toured a military finance center Thursday that was spared from being shuttered during last year’s base-closing process.

The Defense Finance and Accounting Services center in northern Maine was originally targeted for closure by the Pentagon.

But the base closing commission voted last August not only to keep it open, but to add jobs. At the time of the BRAC vote, the DFAS center had 351 jobs. Today it has 449 jobs, and by the end of 2008 it is scheduled to have more than 600.

BRAC chairman Anthony Principi on Thursday toured the center for the first time, accompanied by Sen. Susan Collins, U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud and Gov. John Baldacci. Principi works for Pfizer drug company.

“It’s all unfolding just as we had hoped and predicted,” Collins said after the tour. “It reinforced the commission’s decision not only to reject the Pentagon’s recommendation, but to expand the center.”

The Limestone center was established in 1995 to cushion the impact of the shutdown of Loring Air Force Base during an earlier round of base closings. The base’s closing eliminated 4,500 military jobs and 1,100 civilian jobs.

When the Pentagon announced that the center was among those targeted for closure, workers were angry that the military would take aim at a facility that was created to offset an earlier base closing.

The anger turned to relief when the commission voted to spare Limestone and two other finance centers slated for closure. All told, the commission voted to reduce the number of accounting centers from 26 to five: in Limestone; Rome, N.Y.; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; and Indianapolis.

Instead of being shuttered, the Limestone center now serves as one of the largest employers in northern Maine.

Jobs have been filled locally and by people who have come from other DFAS centers nationwide, Collins said. That’s important for a county that had more than 100,000 people when Collins was growing up, but now has fewer than 75,000 residents.

The jobs pay well with health, retirement and other benefits, she said.

“In addition to being good jobs, they’re secure jobs,” Collins said.

AP-ES-08-31-06 1646EDT