quote:
TCC seeking bonds, tax hike
by: APRIL MARCISZEWSKI World Staff Writer
2/27/2008 12:00 AM
Tulsa Community College is asking the average Tulsa County home-owner to pay about $50 more a year to back a $76 million capital bond issue and finance a property tax increase of 1.7 mills.
The two requests will go before voters May 13.
"This is really about growth of the college," President Tom McKeon said.
Academic programs have waiting lists, the college needs more professors, and it needs more money for operations, he said. The extra income would go toward associate-degree programs that prepare students to immediately enter the work force.
TCC wants to accommodate a student body that has grown 18 percent in the past nine years and expand programs that prepare students for in-demand professions, such as health care, McKeon said.
Bond issue: The college last requested a bond issue in 1999, for $18.3 million to be paid off over five years. A 10-year, $11 million bond issue was approved in 1989. The newly proposed bonds would be paid off in seven years.
The bond revenue would provide money for construction projects on all four TCC campuses and would pay $16 million for a new "learning center" in Owasso.
The learning center would be smaller than TCC's campuses and would be adjacent to a forthcoming Tulsa Technology Center campus, McKeon said.
Metro Campus: The bond issue would provide $3.54 million to finish the Center for Creativity, which is under construction and mostly funded, and buy equipment. This would provide more space for distance learning, digital media, graphic design, video production, journalism, Web design and broadcast production programs, according to TCC.
Also, for the cost of $4.08 million, TCC would remodel and equip an existing building to expand programs for physical therapy assistant, dental hygiene, radiography, occupational therapy assistant, sonography and medical office administration.
Northeast Campus: TCC would use $13.5 million to buy land and build facilities for fire and emergency services, first-responder training, community preparedness and homeland security programs. The city of Tulsa also is contributing to the fire training center.
West Campus: TCC would spend $5.95 million to expand, remodel and equip buildings for the early child development program, according to TCC.
Southeast Campus: The bond issue would provide $10.1 million for a computer lab and student support center for biotechnology, interior design, accounting, information technology management and marketing programs, according to TCC. Also, parking would be expanded at a cost of $1.2 million.
The remaining $21.57 million would provide for any cost increases because of rising prices of construction materials and any other contingencies, said Lauren Brookey, TCC's vice president for external affairs. State law requires the college to specify how it will spend 70 percent of bond revenue.
Property tax hike: TCC last asked voters for a higher millage rate in 1994, Brookey said. Property owners pay 7 mills to TCC now. A mill is $1 in taxes for every $1,000 of assessed property value. A person with a home assessed at $100,000 would pay $17.04 more a year with the increase. TCC estimates, based on current property values, it would receive $7.9 million more because of the increase.
Almost a third of TCC's annual budget comes from local property taxes. This year, it is an estimated $31.3 million.
The tax increase would allow TCC to hire more professors; expand academic programs, including emergency preparedness, nursing and allied health, business and management, and early childhood development; and start new programs, including cardiovascular technology, management leadership, information technology convergence, air traffic controller and process technology, according to information from the college.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20080227_1_A1_spanc26771
Yeah, glad to see an emphasis on education and all that. TCC just does not give me warm fuzzies anymore. After seeing them devour the downtown area around them and overlay it with asphalt so that it more resembles the burbs, I started to lose that sense of rah rah comaraderie. Ever used their application process for employment? Archaic and reaking of nepotism and "friends" networking. I have a BBA from a state college and after trying for a couple years, couldn't even get an interview...for anything. Heard the same from others. Gave up and moved on.
Important to make good pr with the folks that pay your overhead and give you a place to sprawl before you reach into their back pocket fo mo money.
I don't care for TCC either, they flattened blocks of downtown and are largely responsible for blocking OU-Tulsa and OSU-Tulsa from offering lower division classes.
If they would let OSU Tulsa offer 1st and 2nd year classes they wouldn't need any more space.
And if OSU Tulsa was allowed to offer lower classes and wanted a tax hike I would vote yes.
I like TCC but do believe they could use some overhaul work. Taking the same class at different campuses should not involve different curriculum and books. They need to combine their management. Put a dean of every division at central and assistant deans at the outlying campuses. I was employed by TCC at Southeast Campus for 5 years and when I asked about working at Metro or Northeast, I found out I basically had to apply as if I was someone from off the street.
I am a big fan of education and nearly always vote in favor of funding education. New buildings, more parking, and many other pet projects do not necessarily do anything for education. They make the campus nicer (which in the case of a competitive institution can attract the caliber of students you desire) but they do not by themselves always improve education.
In this instance, I don't know enough about TCC nor their needs to make an educated statement (I know what the article said, but every government institution always needs more money). But we have been giving them a lot of funding lately and they have been on a bit of a building boom at all but their North campus (what's going on with the new downtown structures anyway?). I want to know what we are getting out of the investment.
Is the increase in student loan educating people who then take jobs in Dallas or KC? Are they graduates who go to TCC to avoid getting a really real job (no offense, but many community college programs are like out patient high school. Not passing judgment on TCC because I don't know specifically, just sayin')? Or are they going to TCC to take jobs in Tulsa, or at the bequest of employers, or to CREATE or attract new jobs fro Tulsa? I would be interested in seeing a non-TCC funded study showing their impact both economically and otherwise in the area.
An educated workforce outperforms a non-educated or less-educated workforce. They start more companies, attract better employers, and usually diversify to hedge against recession (at oil bust atm would destroy Tulsa's manufacturing base). An educated workforce usually earns more and can sustain new developments, more travel, cultural and entertainment items. In essence, an educated workforce can help build the Tulsa we want to see.
[sidenote: educated does not mean a doctorate or even a BA. A machinest who has an associates in industrial design or a tool and dye maker who is certified is a huge bennefit to the employer. A mechanic who has taken a few business courses is more likely to succeed if he strikes out on his own. You get the drift]
If TCC is educating our workforce and strengthening our economy and more money will help that. Give them all they need.
quote:
Originally posted by sgrizzle
I like TCC but do believe they could use some overhaul work. Taking the same class at different campuses should not involve different curriculum and books. They need to combine their management. Put a dean of every division at central and assistant deans at the outlying campuses. I was employed by TCC at Southeast Campus for 5 years and when I asked about working at Metro or Northeast, I found out I basically had to apply as if I was someone from off the street.
Their duplicative building binge has lined the pockets of the usual local construction company cabal.
I'm voting NO.
quote:
Originally posted by Friendly Bear
Their duplicative building binge has lined the pockets of the usual local construction company cabal.
I'm voting NO.
Surprise, surprise.
Construction downtown: they have gravel and some other stuff in place.
Voting no here. I pay enough property tax and am tired of subsiding public education.
Aren't they giving away free tuition?
As they have it split up between the campuses, each campus is really getting a small amount. When I look at what other cities and colleges around the country are investing in their colleges... this is a piiiitifully small amount.
As for where the students go, you cant control that with any college. But if you dont have the affordable college here, its more certain that more people here will either not get educated or will move away.
If you dont like the surface parking downtown, I am sure TCC would LOVE structured parking.... IF your willing to pay for it. [;)] And remember they are getting rid of at least one of their parking lots with the new building.
Yes I too would love to see OSU Tulsa grow. Here is hoping the state allows us those new degree programs. As for OSU not doing the first 2 years. TCC metro is very close and why would we want to pay for duplicate programs instead of the 4 year programs we didnt have? We still dont even have enough 4 year and graduate programs or funding for them at OSU Tulsa imo. I would much rather spend any monies on more graduate programs there... IF we are allowed to even have them.
BTW saw an article about how the US is in desperate need of more engineers. Showed the states that were educating them and those that were not. Most were not and of course Oklahoma was a "not" state. Sounds like a decent niche Tulsa could work on filling.
Btw. Yes I am a proud TCC grad. [8D]
quote:
Originally posted by citizen72
Aren't they giving away free tuition?
Yes, TCC is free for local students.
+1 on Engineers Artist.
Also MDs (anyone else LOVE the Tulsa World article on OKC hording public hospital money?).
Also a good point on not controlling where they go. I understand that but imagine the programs should/could be/are geared towards local job markets. Subsidizing nuclear scientists wouldn't help Tulsa at all, MDs, engineers, machinists, artists (of course:) and myriad of other programs do. bah! You get the drift.
Not this time, sorry. I thought the lottery was supposed to alleviate the need for these tax increases.
Why is no one talking about this election - three weeks away? They're proposing to raise property taxes another 1.7 mills. (TCC already gets twice as much of the property tax as city streets.) If the streets proposal involves another 3.3 mills, as has been discussed, everyone will raise holy hell and talk about starving grannies, but this barely gets a glance?
They are trying to get it passed by keeping it under the radar. I'll make it a point to vote no.
quote:
Originally posted by cannon_fodder
+1 on Engineers Artist.
Also MDs (anyone else LOVE the Tulsa World article on OKC hording public hospital money?).
Any word on lawyers? How are we doing in the need department? (Get ready to get fire bombed)
quote:
Originally posted by sgrizzle
quote:
Originally posted by citizen72
Aren't they giving away free tuition?
Yes, TCC is free for local students.
Wasn't that way for me when in graduated in '85.
I'm for sure voting no on this one.
So how much is that a week? The $50 tax, I mean? Less than a buck, right? Yeah, that's a pretty onerous tax right there.
I am voting against this tax and any other tax for public education.
quote:
Originally posted by guido911
I am voting against this tax and any other tax for public education.
Right. Heard that the first time.
Since you're just itchin' to tell us, go ahead and spill it. Which do you hate, the public part, or the education part? Or just all of it combined?
quote:
Originally posted by guido911
I am voting against this tax and any other tax for public education.
Yes, we can see how much better those other cities do that have a lot of educational opportunities and large colleges in them. We sure wouldn't want to be doing that well. All that growth, higher wages, young educated people creating businesses and acting as a good labor force attracting even more businesses,,,, Geesh it must be awful. Better to have a stagnant economy, a comparatively less educated workforce, and low wage jobs.
quote:
Originally posted by Hoss
quote:
Originally posted by sgrizzle
quote:
Originally posted by citizen72
Aren't they giving away free tuition?
Yes, TCC is free for local students.
Wasn't that way for me when in graduated in '85.
I'm for sure voting no on this one.
Wasnt that way for me when I graduated in 85 either. But I am voting for it and hope to be able to donate to scholarships some day too.
quote:
Originally posted by Kiah
Why is no one talking about this election - three weeks away? They're proposing to raise property taxes another 1.7 mills. (TCC already gets twice as much of the property tax as city streets.) If the streets proposal involves another 3.3 mills, as has been discussed, everyone will raise holy hell and talk about starving grannies, but this barely gets a glance?
"Starving grannies" gets you +145 my friend.
quote:
Originally posted by we vs us
So how much is that a week? The $50 tax, I mean? Less than a buck, right? Yeah, that's a pretty onerous tax right there.
DO THE ROADS FIRST
(just had to say it)
I like TCC. I've been both a student and a teacher I just thnk they need to rework this proposal. They need to come up with a real plan for downtown as they are running out of places to park students and even just lost a parking lot but they still won't talk about a garage. They also need to be concentrating on brining OETA inhouse at Metro campus which was one of their original plans. I also believe they need to (somewhat) specialize each campus. Tulsa is not big enough that they have to duplicate every class at every campus. SEC needs to concentrate on medical and performing arts, NEC on Computers/IT, etc, etc.
quote:
Originally posted by sgrizzle
quote:
Originally posted by we vs us
So how much is that a week? The $50 tax, I mean? Less than a buck, right? Yeah, that's a pretty onerous tax right there.
DO THE ROADS FIRST
(just had to say it)
I like TCC. I've been both a student and a teacher I just thnk they need to rework this proposal. They need to come up with a real plan for downtown as they are running out of places to park students and even just lost a parking lot but they still won't talk about a garage. They also need to be concentrating on brining OETA inhouse at Metro campus which was one of their original plans. I also believe they need to (somewhat) specialize each campus. Tulsa is not big enough that they have to duplicate every class at every campus. SEC needs to concentrate on medical and performing arts, NEC on Computers/IT, etc, etc.
It is interesting to consider that they basically have 4 different college campuses. Most of those "best places to live" etc. have far more colleges and more college offerings than Tulsa does. TCC is a VERY large community college, just goes to show ya the need that is out there for college education in Tulsa.
Hopefully we will see the local graduate universities step up and expand to take on the continuing educational needs of ever more TCC students rather than seeing those students have to move out of the city.
As for downtown, I think we are beginning to see a new growth pattern start for TCC and others actually. As buildings that were once abandoned begin to be refurbished and utilized, property values go up,,,,, surface parking will go down. Though wary of parking garages, for something like TCC it may be a good thing.
I'm also not sold on adding a lot of capacity at TCC. I have heard that the Northeast campus is very under used. How about some out of the box thinking here and sell that campus to Langston and use the proceeds to open an Owasso location? Use the 2025 funds and have the state kick in some extra cash and Langston could end up with a much larger campus just a mile from where they are wanting to build and TCC could trade under utilized classroom space for a location that would be more used.
And I really agree that TCC has to have garage based downtown parking and needs to stop leveling the south end of downtown. I would like to see TCC and the downtown churches work together on a parking solution, the churches need parking at times when TCC is vacant, or nearly so. They should work together on sharing the cost of parking garages so that all their surface lots can be redeveloped.
I would like to see a reworked proposal that includes Northeast going to Langston, and the subsequent funds from the state and Langston used to start building an Owasso campus. Then a new tax the proposal can include more funds for each of the TCC campuses (and for OSU Tulsa) and parking garages downtown. The funds for the downtown garages can be augmented by the downtown churches that would use the garages mostly on Sundays and Wednesday nights. The garages could gain additional funding from the sale of current surface lots for both the churches and TCC.
quote:
Originally posted by swake
I'm also not sold on adding a lot of capacity at TCC. I have heard that the Northeast campus is very under used. How about some out of the box thinking here and sell that campus to Langston and use the proceeds to open an Owasso location? Use the 2025 funds and have the state kick in some extra cash and Langston could end up with a much larger campus just a mile from where they are wanting to build and TCC could trade under utilized classroom space for a location that would be more used.
And I really agree that TCC has to have garage based downtown parking and needs to stop leveling the south end of downtown. I would like to see TCC and the downtown churches work together on a parking solution, the churches need parking at times when TCC is vacant, or nearly so. They should work together on sharing the cost of parking garages so that all their surface lots can be redeveloped.
I would like to see a reworked proposal that includes Northeast going to Langston, and the subsequent funds from the state and Langston used to start building an Owasso campus. Then a new tax the proposal can include more funds for each of the TCC campuses (and for OSU Tulsa) and parking garages downtown. The funds for the downtown garages can be augmented by the downtown churches that would use the garages mostly on Sundays and Wednesday nights. The garages could gain additional funding from the sale of current surface lots for both the churches and TCC.
Northeast campus is underused because the rest of Tulsa is "skeered" to go to North(ish) Tulsa. Opent he owasso satellite location and it will get worse. Northeast campus also has some additional funding sources due to fact it serves a lot of minorities. Northeast is home of the cyber-security program which is a good program, but very underutilized.
I personally think the NEC campus location is awkward. It's like they wanted it to be next to a highway so people from other parts of Tulsa would come.
quote:
Originally posted by sgrizzle
quote:
Originally posted by swake
I'm also not sold on adding a lot of capacity at TCC. I have heard that the Northeast campus is very under used. How about some out of the box thinking here and sell that campus to Langston and use the proceeds to open an Owasso location? Use the 2025 funds and have the state kick in some extra cash and Langston could end up with a much larger campus just a mile from where they are wanting to build and TCC could trade under utilized classroom space for a location that would be more used.
And I really agree that TCC has to have garage based downtown parking and needs to stop leveling the south end of downtown. I would like to see TCC and the downtown churches work together on a parking solution, the churches need parking at times when TCC is vacant, or nearly so. They should work together on sharing the cost of parking garages so that all their surface lots can be redeveloped.
I would like to see a reworked proposal that includes Northeast going to Langston, and the subsequent funds from the state and Langston used to start building an Owasso campus. Then a new tax the proposal can include more funds for each of the TCC campuses (and for OSU Tulsa) and parking garages downtown. The funds for the downtown garages can be augmented by the downtown churches that would use the garages mostly on Sundays and Wednesday nights. The garages could gain additional funding from the sale of current surface lots for both the churches and TCC.
Northeast campus is underused because the rest of Tulsa is "skeered" to go to North(ish) Tulsa. Opent he owasso satellite location and it will get worse. Northeast campus also has some additional funding sources due to fact it serves a lot of minorities. Northeast is home of the cyber-security program which is a good program, but very underutilized.
I personally think the NEC campus location is awkward. It's like they wanted it to be next to a highway so people from other parts of Tulsa would come.
I'm voting NO.
All the existing TCC Ad Valorem tax is doing is funding a campus building boom to line the pockets of the favored local construction companies. The campus buildings are heavily UNDERUTILIZED as it is.
And, don't forget the $1,000,000 Kiss-in-the-Mail that the TCC Board of Regents bestowed on Dean Van Trease as his Going-Away present. The favored local construction cartel was Sooooooooooo pleased with his oily performance in getting the voters to approve an Ad Valorem increase to Feed their Greed, that they told the Board to give him a Bonus of $1,000,000.
For services rendered.
What a bunch of sweethearts!
There are simply too many educational fiefdoms with mini-potentates ruling the local campuses of TCC, TTC, NSU-Broken Arrow, OU-Tulsa, OSU-Tulsa, and Langston.
Endless duplication, redundancy, feather-bedding and inefficiency.
Vote NO, and give your wallet a brief rest before it gets emptied via a predicted runaway inflation that is looming.
quote:
Originally posted by we vs us
quote:
Originally posted by guido911
I am voting against this tax and any other tax for public education.
Right. Heard that the first time.
Since you're just itchin' to tell us, go ahead and spill it. Which do you hate, the public part, or the education part? Or just all of it combined?
Wow, I just realized this is an old, rescuitated thread that I double posted. To answer your question, the "public" part of it.
Ironically enough, I wrote a paper for my comp course when I was a student at TCC in 1985 which explored the possibility of combining then UCAT and TJC into "Tulsa State University" and offering a full four year, plus graduate level degree programs.
Unless I've left a city off the list, Tulsa is the largest city in the U.S. without a public four-year and post-grad university.
There is so much weird corruption in the background of the board of regents which has resulted instead in a mish-mash of NEO, Langston, OSU, and OU offering various degree programs.
There is a lot of duplication and wasted resources in TCC (and others) operating multiple campuses in the Tulsa metro area. In some cases with TCC, it's necessary to use more than one of the campuses to complete all necessary semester course work.
It's not an efficient system as it is now. They don't need more expansion, consolidation would be more like it.
What does Owasso need with a campus? I think the Northeast Campus is close enough. It is quite easy to get to. My vote is NO
Let's do the river first...
quote:
Originally posted by Conan71
Let's do the river first...
Sure... NOW you care about the river...
quote:
Originally posted by sgrizzle
quote:
Originally posted by Conan71
Let's do the river first...
Sure... NOW you care about the river...
Streets?
Do the Streets?
quote:
Originally posted by Friendly Bear
quote:
Originally posted by sgrizzle
quote:
Originally posted by Conan71
Let's do the river first...
Sure... NOW you care about the river...
Streets?
Do the Streets?
Sssshhhhh!!! You'll wake the big white elephant in the corner of the room.