ROCKPORT – Pen Bay Health Care and its subsidiary, Kno-Wal-Lin, are exploring the application of a $390,000 government grant to help finance starting up a seven-bed hospice house that is to be constructed on Pen Bay Medical Center property. To do so, however, requires the help of Rockport, whose Select Board will discuss the proposal this evening at a regularly scheduled meeting.

The Community Development Block Grant, if approved by voters, would be a mechanism whereby the health care nonprofit would get assistance from the town in pursuing federal job creation funding. Obtaining grant money would be contingent on the creation of jobs at the hospice.

The Select Board meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the Rockport Opera House. The meeting will be televised on public access channel 22.

Click here to read the entire agenda.

The Pen Bay/Kno-Wal-Lin Hospice House, expected to open in July 2014, is to be a facility where patients in their final stages of life are to receive care. The hospice site is adjacent to Pen Bay Medical Center property in Rockport. The $5.8 million project is expected to create 13 new jobs. The hospice is anticipated to carry $1.1 million operating costs in its first year, and grow to $1.5 million by Year Five, according to a Pen Bay Healthcare Foundation memo to the Rockport Select Board, as well as the the town’s manager and planner.

The memo, authored by Executive Director Holly Miller and consultant Chris Shrum, outlined the state’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, which provides grants to businesses creating jobs for low and moderate income employees. That LMI is “defined as 80 percent median household income of the county or state, whichever is higher.”

The CDBG economic development program provides up to $30,000 per job created. The business has 12 months to create the jobs, as outlined in the grant application.

According to the memo, Kno-Wal-Lin will create 13 new jobs, of which seven will target LMI employees. The majority of those positions will be service workers — CNAs or home health aides.

“In addition to the new positions, the facility will draw from a host of other services already provided through the Pen Bay/MaineHealth system,” the memo said.

Jobs anticipated to be created at the hospice include:

4.5 fulltime registered nurses, with hourly salaries and eligible fringe benefits of $39.59

5.5 home health aides, with hourly salaries and eligible fringe benefits of $16.93

1 house manager, with an hourly salary and eligible fringe benefits of $41.13

1 administrative coordinator, with an hourly salary and eligible fringe benefits of $18.78

.5 housekeeper, with an hourly salary and eligible fringe benefits of $14.63

.5 social worker, with an hourly salary and eligible fringe benefits of $31.23

The CDBG application requires help from the town to apply for, and administer, the grant.

Kno-Wal-Lin will draw down grant funds only as qualified jobs are created, the memo said.

Pursuing CDBG funds is not a first for Rockport. In 2009, the town approved a $100,0000 CDBG application for Farmers Fare, and a few years later, a another CDBG for Avena Botanicals.

If the Select Board agrees to move forward on the grant application for Kno-Wal-Lin, there will be one or more public hearings early next winter.