(Photo by Selina Scott) LCC bond yard sign on campus
LCC campaigns for $121.5 million bond
Lane Community College’s Board of Education is pursuing the most ambitious bond in the school’s history of $121.5 million in May— nearly a 50 percent increase from the $83 million bond in November 2008.
On Feb. 18, many board members present at the Board of Education meeting expressed that the bond is “critical to the future of this college.”
Plans for the allocation of the money to the school’s campus can be broken down threefold: safety and security; local workforce career investments; and classroom and learning-space updates.
According to President Margaret Hamilton, the highest priority is safety and security.
“We have to make sure that these buildings are earthquake safe, that there are lights, that there is good parking lots, and ADA accessibility. That is a powerful number one,” she said.
The campus has an estimated $90 million in deferred maintenance. Some aging buildings are no longer up to seismic or structural safety codes and these issues are promised to be addressed with money from the bond.
Hamilton’s second focus would be to modernize the classrooms.
She hopes to update the technology in classrooms and improve the campus WiFi.
According to Hamilton, the science labs are “mighty old” and in need of revitalization. “We call it [a] ‘21st century classroom.’ That’s where the rubber hits the road. That’s the infrastructure of every classroom.”
The third major priority is to improve technical training courses such as building a new facility on campus to house the dental hygiene, paramedic and medical assistant programs.
Other funding priorities include careers and tech programs such as food processing, wood products manufacturing and the nursing program which could all potentially see interactive technology upgrades.
“Those labs need to be updated,” Hamilton said. She also wants to move the dental clinic to the main campus. “Dental is still downtown. They have to be here.”
These goals are to be achieved over the course of 20 years.
While doing these upgrades and additions, the bond money would also preserve certain general fund dollars. This would fund counseling, veteran services and tutoring services for the students.
This the largest bond in the college’s 56 years board member Rosemary Pryor explained.
“Programs have been added, additional types of classes have been added, service to support students have been added,” she said. “In order to pay for that, the Board of Education has prioritized using all the operational funds that we have at our disposal.”
Pryor clarified that in order to make these additions and keep services students have asked for, the board has been stretching the budget.
“We have forced ourselves in order to respond to what students say they need and want. We have forced ourselves into a situation where we are budgeting the bare minimum necessary to take care of the bricks and mortar that is Lane Community College.”
The largest challenge the board faces to pass this bond is voter fatigue.
Pryor believes the voters are on the side of the community college and their plan is to get the word out the best they can. Yard signs saying “I’m with LCC” are placed throughout campus and soon ads will be inside buses in an effort to spread the word.
“It’s imperative that this bond passes. I mean, if we don’t get this money we have to turn back to the only sources of income that we have—tuition, property tax, state funding— which is based on income tax payments, and the only one of those levers we can pull is tuition,” Pryor said.
The Board of Education has raised tuition every year since Pryor joined. She hopes to see this stop. If this bond passes, she believes the board would be under less pressure to raise tuition as a source of revenue for the college.
