Portland Adult Education (PAE), the adult student component of Portland Public Schools, is seeking to leverage $200,000 in property taxes to continue funding a workforce training program that last year taught almost exclusively immigrant students.
The PAE workforce training program first launched in fiscal year (FY) 2020 as a pilot program, funded with $100,000 from the Downtown Portland Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district.
In TIF districts, municipalities freeze property taxes at an original assessed value in a specific area, and then derive revenue from increased property assessments within the district over time.
The city then approves development programs to authorize certain uses for those TIF funds.
Portland has continued to approve TIF funding for the PAE workforce training program since 2020, with $100,000 in both FY21 and FY22, doubling that amount to $200,000 in FY23 and FY24.
According to a memo on the PAE program from Portland Housing and Economic Development Director Gregory Watson, the intended result of their requested $200,000 is to “continue to expand its workforce training program to provide skills to assist in addressing the region’s labor shortage and local employer demand for qualified workers.”
Watson said Tuesday that the program is “a really important part of how we help to bring new Mainers into our communities and find the necessary education, training and direction to be part of our workforce.”
Watson added that the program would support the Portland City Council’s goal of “increasing diversity, equity and inclusion.”
The Executive Director of PAE is Miyabi (Abbie) Yamamoto, who previously worked as the Executive Director of the Portland-based nonprofit migrant advocacy organization the Maine Association for New Americans.
In a memo to the Portland City Council’s Housing & Economic Development Committee, Yamamoto boasted that in FY24, the PAE workforce training program enrolled 135 students, all of whom came from outside of the U.S.
Those 135 students came from 28 distinct countries of origin outside of the U.S., and 96 percent of the students “identified as BIPOC” — an acronym which stands for Black, Indigenous, and people of color — according to Yamamoto’s memo.
For FY25, Yamamoto proposed to the City Council committee that $200,000 in TIF funds be allocated to the PAE workforce training program for seven different courses.
During their Tuesday meeting, the Portland City Council’s Housing & Economic Development Committee heard a presentation from Yamamoto on the TIF-funded PAE workforce training program.
Below is a table from Yamamoto’s presentation to the committee, showing the proposed FY25 courses, which include English language courses, bank teller training, commercial driver’s license training, and preparation for the state’s certified nursing assistant (CNA) exam.
Yamamoto emphasized the importance in particular of the ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) courses, which she said currently have an over 1,000-person waitlist.
City Councilor Regina Phillips asked Yamamoto if the program only utilizes TIF funding for non-native English speakers and international students.
Yamamoto responded that while the funding is not only for non-native English speakers and people from other countries, the population of the program is over 95 percent immigrants.
“It would be really good the next time to hear just, what is the outreach to the Black community — American-born Black community?” Councilor Phillips said as a follow-up to Yamamoto, requesting that the program do more to bring in native-born American students to the Education Academy.
Councilor Pious Ali said that he agreed with Phillips that the program should be for “everybody who lives in Portland,” and that the Council should look into increasing the TIF funding to expand access to the training program for the non-immigrant population.
The City Council Committee voted unanimously on Tuesday to recommend $200,000 in funding for the program in FY25.
The measure will now advance to the full City Council for final approval.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="28868 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=28868">13 Comments
So white and a legal citizen, forget it.
Illegally here and not white, come on in and get all the taxpayer funded goodies at the expense of all those American citizens.
Liberals turn everything to trash.
SO SICK of seeing our state’s resources being spent on PET DIVISIONS of population with no permission from the taxpayers.
A bunch of Somalis and Nigerians are never going to be “new Mainers”. They’re going to be foreigners living in Maine, replacing native customs and culture with their own. I guarantee funding for this kind of program will never go before the public in a vote because that would be the immediate end of it.
Good. Now put them to work, let them pay taxes.
Disgusting !
Meantime WHITE American kids are getting the short stick up their #%^. Send these maggots back to thier home COUNTRIES of origin and STOP funding these savages ! Stop taxing hard working humans to attempt to “ educate” the absolute laziest & dumbest ppl on the entire planet !
Stop the banana boats from coming to the USA !
Stop the ongoing plague of fake asylum seeker crap ! Stop taxing Americans born here who are getting screwed to support these lowlifes! Stop screwing up our own kids educations just to cater to these imbeciles and savages who have ZERO regard for our children and our way of life!
Stop the BS funding of their rents, 75% of refugees in greater Portland are driving new Mercedes Benz’s BECAUSE of this BS ! Meantime US born kids are getting screwed out of opportunities, education, sports and in and on and on !
STOP the corrupt funding of all of this fake asylum immigration BS ! Real Americans are sick of this garbage ! And take your fake made up equity and inclusion brainwashing crap and ram it up your libtard asses !
Have the NGOs like Catholic Charities foot the bill for these ILLEGAL ALIEN programs. And lets cut the BS with changing the names to ‘New Americans’ or illegal immigrants, they are ILLEGAL ALIENS!!
Thanks Ryan M. You identified who’s behind a lot of the crap in this country.
There are so many job openings in Portland, we could use training for twice as many people. These courses are available to everyone in Portland, but the new immigrants are ambitious enough to work hard for the American dream. Who do you think will take care of our increasingly elderly population in the future? Thanks, Portland, for promoting this training.
Well when they get deported they can take their taxpayer training with them. They are illegals, why reward them?
Are the migrants the Democrat’s new version of a modern day slave trade, cheap labor, that can be fed scraps with the promise of a better life? Or a mercenary foreign legion, we will take anyone willing to service us with the promise of citizenship?
There must be a master plan, I question the elite
I’m a former very good ESL teacher who taught in Afghanistan and So. Korea back in the mid-70s. I’m NOT available for hire.
DEI. A scam with the intent of addressing systemic racism through the implementation of systemic racism.
This is ” White Replacement ” … Wake up White People and Tribe UP . Genocide is next all these 3rd Worlders getting indoctrinated that “Whitey is Evil ” and you want them taking care of you in your final years or months … ? … Already Horror Tales are surfacing around the Country of Mis-Treatment of Elderly Whites by The ‘Pocs..