Work by Matthew Stone

Jan. 3, 2010

More than half of Kennebec Technologies' 50 employees have degrees from community colleges.

That's what makes the Augusta precision manufacturer a prime target for the Maine Community College System's latest fundraising push.

The seven-campus network in December announced it's forming a statewide foundation to raise money for scholarships, new technology purchases, new facilities and facility repairs.

And rather than appeal to alumni whose pockets might not be so deep, the community colleges will reach out to the Maine businesses that depend on them to train workers.

"I think we can tap a business base in a very effective way," Maine Community College System President John Fitzsimmons said. "They've seen the success of the community colleges as benefiting their own companies."

"We'll support it, absolutely," said Charles "Wick" Johnson, Kennebec Technologies' president and owner and a former chairman of the University of Maine System Board of Trustees.

The foundation's launch comes as community colleges see their state funding cut and they're called upon to train more unemployed workers.

"It's certainly an effort to help supplement limited state dollars," said Helen Pelletier, a community college system spokeswoman.

The Maine Community College System has seen the percentage of its budget funded by state appropriations gradually drop in recent decades.

During the 1989-90 academic year, according to the system, 64 percent of the then-technical colleges' budget came from state funds. This year, the community colleges are receiving $52.2 million, or 39 percent of their $135 million combined budget, from state appropriations. That's after a statewide spending curtailment in November forced them to forfeit $1.7 million from their state funding package. Gov. John Baldacci's proposed supplemental budget would keep that cut in place.

Community colleges across the country have also seen the portion of their budgets funded by state governments shrink in recent decades.

During the 1980-81 academic year, 16 states funded 60 percent or more of community college budgets. By 2000-01, none funded them at that level, according to a 2009 University of Alabama survey.

At the same time, community college enrollment has grown.

The number of students taking classes at the Maine colleges this fall jumped 12 percent, to 16,550, over last year. The colleges had to turn away 4,000 additional students due to limited capacity, Fitzsimmons said.

"As more people have come to us to ask for help, the state has been in difficult economic times and consequently has been cutting our funding instead of increasing our funding," he said.

The Foundation for Maine's Community Colleges, Fitzsimmons said, figures into the Maine Community College System's plans to expand and enroll more students in the coming years. In five to six years, Fitzsimmons said he hopes Maine's community colleges enroll 20,000 students; five to six years after that, 30,000.

"The only way we can do that is through more partnerships, fundraising and being financially prudent," he said.

Fitzsimmons said the statewide foundation will complement a network of local foundations based at six of Maine's seven community colleges that raise money for individual campuses. Those foundations awarded $800,000 in student scholarships during the 2007-08 academic year, according to tax documents.

Dana Doran, executive director of the Kennebec Valley Community College Foundation in Fairfield, said the statewide fundraising effort will likely prove helpful to his local foundation.

"Any opportunity to leverage funds from other sources that may be outside our purview is always good, and will always benefit students in the long run," he said.

"This is a time when students have a great need for scholarship assistance," Kennebec Valley Community College President Barbara Woodlee said. "We're pleased to have all the help we can possibly get."

Through a statewide foundation, it could become easier for the state's community colleges to appeal to national businesses and philanthropies for significant amounts of money, said Stephen Katsinas, director of the University of Alabama's Education Policy Center.

"There are certain things that can be done statewide that can't be done locally," said Katsinas, an expert on community colleges. "It's also a way to involve civic and business leaders in community colleges."

Indeed, a number of high-profile Maine residents are serving on the foundation board.

They include former Gov. John McKernan, the chairman; Lisa Gorman, a political activist from Yarmouth and wife of L.L. Bean chairman Leon Gorman; and Daniel Wathen, the former Maine Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice and current chairman of the Maine Community College System Board of Trustees.

The community college system has hired a foundation president, Elizabeth Shorr, to manage the new fundraising effort. Shorr is currently the top fundraising official at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

Johnson, of Kennebec Technologies, said it's "critically important" that public colleges and universities take fundraising seriously as state funds wither.

"It has to be viewed as part of their mission," he said.

What's more, the appeal for funds and the investment of funds once they're raised have to be done professionally, Johnson said.

"It sounds like they're off on the right start," he said of the community college effort.

Matthew Stone — 623-3811, ext. 435
mstone@centralmaine.com