WASHINGTON — Maine’s political leaders want the Pentagon to increase the amount of assistance it will offer to civilian employees forced to sell their homes because of the planned shutdown of Loring Air Force Base in 1994.

The Pentagon’s Housing Assistance Program offers former base civilian workers partial payments for losses sustained in the sale of a house in depressed real estate markets, or expenses involved in mortgage default or foreclosure. In extreme cases, the HAP program is authorized to buy the homes of former base workers.

The formula for such payments is now set at 75 percent of the former base worker’s residence. Pentagon officials are considering possible changes in the fair-market formula.

Gov. John R. McKernan, Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell, Sen. William S. Cohen and Rep. Olympia J. Snowe urged the Department of Defense Thursday to increase the 75 percent formula, noting that HAP based its payments to laid-off civilian workers at Pease Air Force Base at 85 percent of market value.

“Based on the severe economic impact that the closure of Loring AFB will have on the real estate market in the area, we request that you increase the acquisition percentage to 90 percent, the highest level allowed by statute,” the Maine politicians said in their letter to Donald J. Atwood, deputy secretary of defense for HAP.

“Providing anything less than the highest level allowed by law will force these individuals to assume an unfair financial burden based on a decision over which they have no control,” he said.