BIDDEFORD — Five local legislators and Saco Mayor Donald Pilon shuffled through the halls of Biddeford Regional Center of Technology last Friday as part of an informational tour organized by Rep. Marty Grohman, D-Biddeford.

Peg Levasseur, the school’s director, led the tour along with BRCOT Assistant Director Tim Stebbins and Superintendent of Biddeford Schools Jeremy Ray. The bunch stopped off at nine classrooms to chat with teachers and learn more about the programs BRCOT offers as well as how Maine’s technical centers are funded.

“I’m the ring leader on this thing,” Grohman said of the afternoon event.

He said he was inspired to raise awareness of BRCOT, especially within the Legislature, after taking a welding class at the school a couple of years ago.

“I was really impressed by everything they had to offer,” he said. “We’ve got to increase awareness of it.” He said that graduates of BRCOT programs are met with more than “100 percent employment, so to speak, so that means they get more than one job offer typically.”

BRCOT’s 15 elective-style programs service students across a wide spectrum of aspirations, explained Levasseur, “from kids going on to premed (college) programs to students who just want to go out and get a job.”

Representatives Justin Chenette, D-Saco; Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford; and George Hogan, D-Old Orchard Beach attended along with Grohman. Sen. David Dutremble, D-Biddeford, was also there.

The legislators met first with legal studies and medical assisting teacher Maureen Redmond as well as business teachers Richard Dutremble and Kenneth Crepeau. They learned that together the three classrooms award about 400 college credits to their students each year. “Our credits basically transfer anywhere,” added Crepeau.

From there, the group made its way downstairs to Debra Hapgood’s classroom, where a CPR dummy was lying on one of the room’s four beds. Hapgood teaches medical programming and health science classes. “They leave here with almost a guaranteed job,” she said of her pupils, who pursue careers as nurses, physical therapists and even physicians.

“I can’t walk into a (medical) facility around here without running into one of my former students,” said Hapgood.

The group then visited with Mary Maxfield, who teaches early childhood education, and Eddie Driscoll, who teaches engineering, architecture and drafting. Driscoll said many of his students go on to well-respected college engineering programs and secure positions at industry-leading companies.

To cap off the tour the legislators were given a taste of four more programs, including Bill Gervais’ electrical technology program, Brian Robillard’s welding program, Wayne Hapgood’s building construction program and Marty Duffy’s auto-body technology program.

“No ”˜Check Engine’ lights in here, huh?” Grohman quipped to Duffy, who responded, “If there are, (the students) have to find out why.”

The afternoon was marked by more than just the lawmakers’ oohs and ahhs as they realized how much the school has to offer. The group also discussed the somewhat complicated and often misunderstood process of funding for the state’s 27 technical centers.

“People don’t understand the funding mechanism for a program like this,” Ray said to the group. “Equipment costs are high. … Funding for (technology centers) comes from the state, yet if we ever had to fix the building, (money) would have to be raised by the community of Biddeford.”

Levasseur clarified this week that funding for new programs, new equipment, or equipment or facility repairs at BRCOT is completed through a process of fronting money locally and waiting for reimbursement from the state. Federal money, through a Perkins Loan, is also handed down to the school, she said, but it often falls quite short of covering those costs.

She gave an example, detailing the challenges BRCOT faced in trying to start a culinary program. “The (kitchen) ventilation unit alone was like $90,000,” she said ”“ an amount not even covered by the school’s Perkins Loan, which rings in at just over $80,000.

The rest of the program’s costs would’ve had to come from the city, she said, before the state contributed any money. Ray touched on this point as well.

“Peg (Levasseur) could start a program if she were given funds,” said Ray. But funding would first have to come from the local level, which needs approval from Biddeford voters, he said, and that’s not always an easy sell.

Then, once those local funds are spent, said Levasseur, the state reimburses the school district at a rate of 35 percent. In communities with very low property values, she said, that rate is much higher, and the state gives back closer to 100 percent of the money the district spends.

“It’s kind of unfair,” she said. “Coastal towns have to put so much local money into tech schools when if you’re in a low-property-value area you get more state support.”

Levasseur suggested the process is flawed as technical centers are often regional institutes, meaning they cater to more communities than the one they’re in. “It’s not just Biddeford kids who come here,” she said.

In fact, Biddeford residents only make up about 30-40 percent of BRCOT’s student body. Students from Saco make up a similar percentage, while students from Kennebunk and Old Orchard Beach make up the remaining 20-30 percent.

Furthermore, said Levasseur, technical centers have no “static costs.” Because the equipment and computer programs they use change every year, the costs associated with technical centers are unpredictable and almost always high, she said.

Levasseur added that other states seem to understand the situation better. In New Hampshire and Vermont, for example, state budget money is set aside for technical centers, she said, and the states implement cycles in which each of their technical schools is “hit with funding” every so often.

“It’s like they understand that the locals cannot support the high costs of keeping up CTE (career and technical education) centers because we are not just classrooms and computers,” she said. “Those states set aside money for renovations and equipment so that the locals do not have to carry that large capital outlay in a revolving fashion.”

Levasseur said she’d like to see a similar practice implemented in Maine.

But in the meantime, BRCOT will continue to do what it seems to do best: churn out college- and work-ready individuals. “It’s not for everybody,” Levasseur said of a CTE program. “But we’re important to the educational fabric of the state.”

Toward the end of the tour, Grohman couldn’t contain his wide grin. “I just love this stuff,” he said. “It’s ridiculous, all the career opportunities.”

— Staff Writer Angelo J. Verzoni can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or [email protected].