AUGUSTA — Officials hope a funding formula change could bring more students to Capital Area Technical Center without dramatically increasing costs for the regional center or the eight schools sending students there.

It’s possible to draw as many as 175 more students, filling out capacity that’s now going unused, according to tech center Director Scott Phair.

The proposal to alter the cost-sharing formula determining how the technical education center in Augusta is funded goes to the Augusta Board of Education on Wednesday. The board is scheduled to meet at 7 p.m. in the auditorium at Cony High School.

“We have 175 open seats right now in this school,” Phair said. “Which, quite frankly, I think is tragic. There are a lot of kids who want to come here. But one factor (keeping them from doing that) is their school systems can’t afford to send them. What we really want to do is make sure every student who wants to go to a CATC program has the opportunity to do that.”

Now, school systems other than Augusta pay tuition of about $3,800 per student.

Phair said the existing system has some drawbacks. If a sending school has a lot of students who want to attend the tech center, the cost of paying $3,800 in tuition for each of those students can be costly and have a major impact on that school system’s budget.

Phair said that financial impact can cause sending schools to limit the number of students they’ll allow to attend the tech center.

So the Board of Education is considering a proposal to establish set assessments for each of the eight sending schools, which they would pay each year regardless of how many students attend the tech center in a given year. Schools could send as many students as they want as long as the tech center has the capacity to take them on. The assessment would be based on a formula that takes many factors into account, including how many students each school has typically sent in the past, Phair said.

Now, the approximately 400-student tech center has capacity for many more students than attend.

Phair said the additional students would not bring a corresponding large increase in costs for either the tech center or its eight sending schools. He said, for instance, if a program has 11 students, but has the capacity to take up to 15 students, it wouldn’t cost much more to take four more students in that class.

“What we’re shooting for is to try to maintain the same level of funding we enjoy now from the sending schools,” he said. “My great hope is, for essentially the same amount of money, we might be able to have another 175 kids in these programs.”

Schools are reimbursed for their technical education costs by the state in two years.

The proposal has already been approved by a tech center advisory board that includes superintendents from its sending schools. It would also have to be approved by the school boards in all eight systems.

High schools sending students to the tech center besides Cony are Gardiner Area High School, Winthrop High School, Richmond High School, Erskine Academy in South China, Hall-Dale High School in Farmingdale, Maranacook Community High School in Readfield and Monmouth Academy.

Board members are also scheduled to:

* Consider changing the health insurance carrier for non-union and administrative employees to Aetna Insurance. Insurance is currently provided to most covered Augusta school employees by Anthem Blue Cross, through the Maine Education Association Benefits Trust.

* Consider numerous revised school system policies.

* Consider student and staff travel requests.

* Hear a presentation on standards from Gilbert Elementary fourth-grade teacher Susan Muzzy.

* Consider accepting resignation or retirement letters from music teachers Dwight Tibbetts and Hilary Anderson and Gilbert third-grade teacher Cynthia M. Dehm.

Keith Edwards — 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com