HELENA — Every time he has to change classes, student Senate President Joe Clark travels between the University of Montana-Helena College of Technology's Poplar campus, out by the airport, and the Donaldson campus, located near Helena High School.

The minutes he loses shuttling back and forth translates to 20 hours a year, he told members of the Joint Appropriations Subcommittee on Long Range Planning Tuesday.

"I want to learn," Clark said. "And that's 20 hours I lost just traveling."

Clark was one of many people who spoke in favor of consolidating the college's four campuses to the Poplar campus and erecting two new buildings there. House Bill 560, sponsored by Rep. Christine Kaufmann, D-Helena, would do just that.

No one spoke against the bill.

"It's chaos," Clark said. "We want it to feel like it's one campus."

Some adult students are forced to take classes in rooms the college rents in a former elementary school, said Steven Hoyle, the chief executive officer and dean of the college. Those rooms, he said, lack walls and doors and were built for 5-year-olds.

Some professors use office space in the basement of a house on Sanders Street that once served as a day care. The walls are still painted baby blue, complete with cartoon characters.

The lack of space at the college and its reputation for disorganization leaves students and the state of Montana shortchanged, proponents said.

"Job growth depends on two-year education," Hoyle said.

One of the benefits of small, two-year colleges is their inherent ability to adapt to the needs of incoming businesses, proponents said. But the Helena College of Technology is not keeping pace with the dynamic needs of the new economy, Hoyle said.

For example, the dean said the college should expand its program for health care workers to meet the state's demand for these employees. But there's no room to grow.

"The program operates at capacity, limited by space," said Ellen Livers, a Helena woman who has worked in health care for 24 years. "Montana does not graduate enough (licensed practical nurses) each year to meet the needs of the state's health care employers."

Kelly Walker, a nursing student at the college, told lawmakers that she leaves some school books at home every day because there is just not enough space in the three-room nursing annex to accommodate all her, and her 77 classmates', supplies.

"There is a definite lack of space," she said.

House Bill 560 calls for two new buildings for the Poplar campus at a cost of $13.2 million. The state would pay $7.2 million towards the buildings through bonding and the remainder would be raised through the sales of the other college buildings as well as through private, industrial and corporate sponsorship, Kaufmann said.

The closing and sale of the Donaldson campus alone would bring in several million dollars, she added. The college could also save $100,000 a year in rent money if the campus were consolidated, Kaufmann added.

Under the plan, the state wouldn't start paying its $7.2 million share for the new buildings until fiscal 2006.

One of the buildings proposed for the Poplar campus is a 20,000-square-foot structure dedicated to carpentry and automotive courses. The other is an 80,000-square foot building that would house classrooms and administrative offices, a student union, cafeteria and bookstore.

The college would likely lease land adjacent to the existing Poplar campus from the airport authority.

Kaufmann and many others said a new, centralized campus would best serve the students and the state. Education is key to economic development, she said.

"It's very difficult to expand when you don't have the faculties for it," she said.

The subcommittee took no action on the bill Tuesday.