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Dave Larsen writes about higher education.Home > Blogs > On Campus > Archives > 2008 > March
March 2008
Master plan for Ohio colleges released
The 10-year master plan for Ohio’s public colleges and universities was delivered to Governor Ted Strickland on Monday that details strategies for the Governor’s mandate that Ohio’s colleges increase the number of Ohioans with degrees by 230,000 in the next decade.
The plan takes a consumer-friendly approach, saying the state will offer many educational options to students who can then choose the best programs at the best price to meet their needs.
One of the plan’s main goals is to make available high-quality associate and bachelor’s degree programs in core fields to students within 30 miles of their home, using the infrastructure of the state’s 47 community colleges and regional branch campuses. Community colleges will be linked through policies and a database that will enable each school to offer programs from the other schools. The first associates degree available to the entire state will be available this fall, Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut said in a press conference this morning in Columbus.
All colleges and universities will join the national Voluntary System of Accountability, a voluntary initiative for 4-year public colleges and universities to demonstrate public accountability by measuring students’ outcomes and making information about their institutions accessible, understandable and comparable to consumers. About 225 institutions around the country participate in the system.
Ohio’s institutions will make available to students and their families data regarding price, financial aid, degree programs, retention and graduation rates, campus safety, student satisfaction and student learning outcomes. Two-year institutions will participate in a similar national initiative for community colleges.
The information will be available in an “Ohio College Portrait,” which will show campuses’ progress in 20 performance metrics in real time on a “dashboard” at the University System of Ohio website.
Keep reading for a summary of some of the changes to Ohio’s system.
Some of the changes to Ohio’s system include:
Institutions will be able to set their own tuition at their main campuses, but that authority is contingent on their ability to offer need-based financial aid to all qualified students. The Chancellor will be establishing guidelines for need-based aid, and sharing those with the general assembly prior to the adoption of biennial budget.
High school graduates can be dual-admitted into a community college and university at the same time to shorten the time and reduce the cost of completing a degree.
Programs at adult workforce centers that are equivalent to technical programs at community colleges will now be accepted for college credit. Adult learning centers around the state will offer college-prep courses to adult workers to prepare them to re-enter higher education.
Drop-outs - students who don’t graduate high school by their 18th birthdays - will be aggressively recruited into a special program to complete their diplomas and prepare them for college.
Institutions will be integrated into a single technology infrastructure where students can apply for Ohio colleges and register at multiple institutions.
An Ohio Skills Bank will start measuring the demand for jobs in Ohio’s 12 economic development regions against the supply of students and programs available, adjusting the programs to address shortages.
Ohio will establish a center for studying how to help African American men succeed in college to help create a more diverse workforce. Private schools will share the cost of recruiting international students wth public schools to increase that diversity.
Schools will be expected to be increasingly efficient, and the chancellor will recommend to the general assembly every year new efficiency targets. Eventually, state support to the institutions should be increased to the national average, Fingerhut said.
The plan does not include much involvement with private colleges, only stating that they will be encouraged to participate in the state’s credit transfer system.
The University System of Ohio, created through a directive of Governor Strickland, consists of 13 public universities, 1 medical college, 24 regional branch campuses, 23 community colleges, as well as adult literacy and adult workforce centers.
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Cedarville caught up in speculation
An anonymous phone call from someone in Cedarville, Ohio that something was amiss at the university there triggered my front page story and deeper explanation story on Sunday on the terminations of two professors arising from an apparent theological divide within its most important academic department, Bible studies.
A note about the “climate of fear” statement quoted in the headline: That hardly summarizes the whole story. That statement comes from a group of 16 faculty - some current, some retired - called the Coalition of the Concerned, who are decidedly against the administration but are leading a very public campaign to call attention to the fired faculty issue. It should be noted too, that the headline makes it appear the faculty were suddenly fired this weekend - they were terminated in July, many months ago.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, the national newspaper for higher education, first wrote a similar story about the faculty firings in mid-March. I had just started to look into it when the call came in, signaling to me that people locally wanted to hear more about it.
A couple of thoughts on this: There’s a lot of he-said, she-said going on in regards to what exactly caused the terminations and the extent of the divide. Cedarville can’t say much about it, because they’re bound by confidentiality. I talked to Mr. Hoffeditz, some current students for background, the coalition leading the effort to preserve fundamentalism and the AAUP - but the administration was very limited in what it could say. It did say that if it weren’t bound by confidentiality and people could see what they saw, people might better understand why they took the actions they did.
I know they regret that they must respond to speculation.
Why is this still simmering? Because Cedarville’s niche is fundamentalism. There are plenty of evangelical Christian colleges who AREN’T fundamentalist around the country - but for people who wanted to preserve the certainty of the Bible’s truth as the roadmap for their lives, Cedarville was/is the premier place for this because it also has plenty of great, accredited programs. So for it to appear that those fundamentals are openly debated, that the fundamentals of the faith that supercede fundamentalists’ spouses, jobs and children are being diluted - well that’s a serious dilemma that Cedarville is being forced to deal with. The Christians who want to preserve fundamentalism in the wake of modern doubt really care about this. It’s a faith thing.
In all my interviews I learned the parties all have one thing in common: They’re incredibly philosophical (I admit, I spent four days researching what seemed to be narrow differences in theology but realized there are dozen of books written about the truth and certainty debate, telling me the differences, to them, are huge.) and they all really care about Cedarville.
The similarities in cerebral critical mass between Cedarville and another liberal arts college in Greene County are striking: You can’t sneak anything past students at Cedarville and Antioch College.
I hope people don’t look at this story through the narrow lens of whether or not they believe in God, but rather look at it for what the issue is: That no one at Cedarville seems to be reconciling the speculation with the facts, and that, as Cedarville senior Keith Rice put it, is something students want to see happen.
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Antioch University still willing to sell college
In a last-minute offer Saturday night, Antioch University said it will re-open negotiations with the Antioch College College Continuation Corporation or any other party to sell the college for $12.2 million as long as the two sticking points that caused an impasse between the two parties can be resolved.
In it’s “best and final offer” this week the corporation offered to buy the college for $12.2 million in order to make Antioch College independent. But its offer of providing half the cash at closing and pay the balance over a five-year period was not acceptable to the university, both parties announced Friday, March 28. The university said it needs the entire cash amount up front, at closing. The corporation also wanted National Public Radio affiliate WYSO including in the sale. The university could not agree to that either, it said.
After that announcement, trustees then voted to re-open the negotiations and said it will agree to an offer from the ACCC or any other party as long as they can provide the cash up front.
Lynda Sirk, spokeswoman for Antioch University, said that trustees “feel that if they can work out the financing on 12.2 million, the rest is definitely workable.” So it sounds like they’re willing, maybe, to let go of WYSO for the cash.
Here’s why they opted to be a bit more flexible. From their press release:
In the wake of the ACCC announcement at noon on March 28, the Antioch University Board of Trustees met and expressed deep disappointment at not having reached an agreement with only 2 items remaining—the need for underwriting appropriate security for the $6.2 million the ACCC proposed to pay in installments over five years, and ownership of WYSO. Recognizing that every day of delay is a day lost towards reaching the goal sought in common by all parties, the Board is prepared and willing to negotiate at any time with any party to the end of assuring a vigorous, progressive residential liberal arts college while at the same time protecting the viability and vitality of the University. “We recognize the importance of Antioch College not only to the nation at large but also to the economic health and vitality of the historic village of Yellow Springs, Ohio,” said Art Zucker, “and to the dedicated faculty and students and staff and alumni who have championed Antioch College throughout its storied history and to the present day.” In going forward, the Board will receive formal or informal inquiries made to the Chancellor of Antioch University or the Chair of the Board of Trustees at their corporate headquarters in Yellow Springs, Ohio.”
Here’s a recap from Friday’s impasse. You can read the full story here.
Friday, March 28: Antioch University officials said Friday they rejected an offer from an independent corporation of wealthy alumni to purchase the college for an agreed-upon price of $12.2 million because it needed the whole kit-and-caboodle up front, at closing to keep creditors satisfied.
The Antioch College Continuation Corporation, a Yellow Springs-based non-profit corporation of alumni and former trustees, proposed in December buying the college from the university to make it an independent institution. Negotiations took on a sense of urgency in late February, when the university trustees reaffirmed their June 2007 decision to close Antioch College for a year starting this June, after initial negotiations with the AC3 did not produce an agreement. The final impasse came today, after trustees evaluated what ACCC said was its “best and final” offer Wednesday night.
The university said today the ACCC offered to pay half the purchase price at closing, and then pay the rest over five years. But an installment arrangement would not be acceptable to the university’s creditors “which must ratify the terms of the deal,” the university said. That was the deal-breaker. If they agreed to the deal and for some reason ACCC defaulted on those last remaining payments, “the university’s only remedy wold be to foreclose on the real estate,” Bruce Bedford, chair of the trustee finance committee, said in the statement.
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Antioch College takeover negotiations fail: University said it needed $12.2 million in cash up front
(Art Zucker, chair of the board of trustees; Toni Murdock, chancellor.)
3:00 p.m.
Antioch University said this afternoon it rejected an offer from an independent corporation of wealthy alumni to purchase the college for an agreed-upon price of $12.2 million because it needed the whole kit-and-caboodle up front, at closing to keep creditors satisfied.
The Antioch College Continuation Corporation, a Yellow Springs-based non-profit corporation of alumni and former trustees, proposed in December buying the college from the university to make it an independent institution. Negotiations took on a sense of urgency in late February, when the university trustees reaffirmed their June 2007 decision to close Antioch College for a year starting this June, after initial negotiations with the AC3 did not produce an agreement. The final impasse came today, after trustees evaluated what ACCC said was its “best and final” offer Wednesday night.
The university said today the ACCC offered to pay half the purchase price at closing, and then pay the rest over five years. But an installment arrangement would not be acceptable to the university’s creditors “which must ratify the terms of the deal,” the university said. That was the deal-breaker. If they agreed to the deal and for some reason ACCC defaulted on those last remaining payments, “the university’s only remedy wold be to foreclose on the real estate,” Bruce Bedford, chair of the trustee finance committee, said in the statement.
That part about the creditors caught my attention.
In a telephone interview this afternoon, University Chancellor Toni Murdock said that the university’s credit situation isn’t dire, but it does have significant debt in the form of bonds on the new Antioch University McGregor building, and buildings in Seattle and in Keane, New Hampshire.
Transferring the college assets to the ACCC while the university still had outstanding bonds “creates a huge negative impact on the university’s balance sheet,” the university said.
Murdock elaborated. “Because we had so much debt in relation to the bonds we needed to have enough assets to…It put us in financial jeopardy. If you take away all the assets of the college then it gives bankers pause.”
Which begs an interesting question: How important are the college’s assets to the bonds? College faculty, staff and alumni critical of the administration have questioned the university in the past on whether the college’s assets have served as collateral on bonds. The university has always maintained that the bonds were financed based on each campus’ projected revenue, and the college assets were never at risk.
But it appears that nonetheless, the university’s eggs are in one basket. Murdock on the phone said it needed some assets - either the college, or the $12.2 million in cash - if it hoped to secure future loans on other campuses that need updates (Los Angeles, Santa Barbara).
Another sticking point was WSYO, the NPR affiliate station based in Yellow Springs. The ACCC wanted WYSO as part of the $12.2 million purchase; the university said it wanted to keep WYSO but would let the college use it. They couldn’t work that out.
Members of the ACCC said in a statement today the rejected proposal was its “best and final offer,” and it appears their attempt to take control of the college is over.
“Our offer would have enabled Antioch College to thrive and grow, while simultaneously infusing the rest of the university with millions of dollars in cash,” said Frances Degen Horowitz, co-chair of the ACCC and president emerita of the Graduate Center of the City Unviersity of New York. Horowitz is a college alum.The AC3 said it had raised $18 million to operate the college in the short term, and was preparing to launch a fundraising drive to secure a total of $100 million for its long-term future. The group had hired a turnaround management firm to prepare a detailed five-year plan to increase the college’s enrollment and staffing.
It sounds like everyone involved is disappointed.
“To have worked this hard - and be this close - and not have an agreement is truly heartbreaking,” said Art Zucker, chair of the board of trustees in a statement.
“This is a sad day not only for Antioch, but for all those who care about progressive education in this country,” said Eric Bates, co-chair of the ACCC, who participated in the negotiations.
Murdock said administrators are going to rest for awhile, and then by summer will turn to figuring out how to re-open the college after it closes for one year starting June 30. The university’s headquarters will remain in Yellow Springs, she said. Antioch University operates five campuses nationwide in addition to Antioch College, including Antioch University McGregor also in Yellow Springs. Those campuses will remain open.
But there’s another front in the multidimensional fight to keep the college from closing June 30. On Tuesday, April 1, a hearing in Greene County Common Pleas court will hear evidence in a lawsuit Antioch College faculty filed against the university March 10, alleging the university broke its contractual obligation with the faculty in its decision back in June to declare financial exigency and close the school at the end of this academic year.
The faculty seek a permanent injunction requiring the university follow the faculty policies and prevent it from suspending operations. The faculty also ask the court to enjoin the university from liquidating or dispersing its assets, including buildings, land and its endowment.
I’ll be covering the hearing here on the blog.
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Master Plan for colleges to be released Monday
I’m sure the state’s colleges and universities are anxiously awaiting to hear how the 10-year master plan for the University System of Ohio is going to dramatically change their plans in the next few years. I know I am. I’ve been covering this for 9 months. I’m sure the staff of the board of regents, who are working until 2 a.m. some nights this week editing the thing, can’t wait either. One of the staff members said he was dreaming about the thing in his sleep. Definitely working too hard. I hear V-8 juice is the secret antidote to getting through a long work day.
Details of the long-awaited 10-year master plan for Ohio’s public colleges and universities will be released by Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut on Monday, March 31, his office said today. Fingerhut plans to release the 100-page plan online early Monday morning. That’s right, 100 pages. Pretty meaty stuff, I hear. I’ll have details here on the blog about 7 a.m. Better grab some V-8 juice.
Speaking of education reform: Before you read more on this, head over to my colleague Scott Elliott’s blog to read about a potentially controversial list of reform ideas from Gov. Ted Strickland’s office for the state’s K-12 system that Dayton Daily obtained today. One idea on the list: Eliminating the Ohio Graduation Test.
Monday is the deadline for Fingerhut to submit the plan to Gov. Strickland, who ordered Fingerhut last summer to devise a statewide plan to add 230,000 students in the next 10 years to increase the number of Ohioans who earn degrees, diplomas and certificates to help stimulate Ohio’s economy.
The statewide master plan for the University System of Ohio, drafted by Fingerhut over the last nine months, will lay out a road map for the state’s institutions to do that. The bulk of enrollment growth in both two- and four-year colleges is expected to come from the adult work force.
Making it easier for those students to attend college by providing more flexibility, helping them pay for it by asking their employers to foot the bill, and dealing with a needier population are goals for the master plan.
But such an influx of nontraditional students will create challenges for Ohio’s 23 community colleges and those four-year universities whose incoming freshman often are first-generation college students. Ohio has 13 public four-year universities, including Wright State University, Miami University and Central State University in the Dayton region.
Remedial courses at community colleges are expected to swell as adults head back to college during a time when slightly more than one-third of Ohio’s recent high school graduates who go on to college are already enrolling in remedial math, according to board of regents data.
Some of the unanswered questions college officials and trustees have concern how the increased enrollment will be financially supported when state funding for institutions is not expected to increase. College officials have also speculated how the master plan will enable potential students to earn degrees from institutions outside of their communities.
Also, lot of campuses are not clear about what their “Center of Excellence” is expected to be. Some are worried that duplicative programs will be expected to get stripped out of their curriculum.
But hey, all the speculating can stop Monday. You can find it at the University System of Ohio website. But if you don’t feel like reading 100 pages of material, I’ll summarize it here.
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Bowties in space
The renown of E. Gordon Gee reached new heights this week: Space.
The well-paid President of Ohio State University is known for his bowties, and now one of them is officially the first bow tie in space.
Richard Linnehan, NASA’s first veterinarian and an Ohio State alumnus, brought one of Gee’s scarlet-and-gray bowties aboard the space shuttle Endeavor (Mission STS-123) for two-week trip to the International Space Station. Linnehan will present the bowtie to Gee upon its return to Earth, in a special commemorative frame.
Gee is known for holding several high-profile university presidencies, one of them making him the highest paid college president in the country.
He is in his second tenure as the president of the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, where he is earning $775,000 in base salary and will be eligible for $225,000 in deferred compensation after five years. He was previously president from 1990 to 1997. Before coming back to OSU, Gee was chancellor of Vanderbilt University from 2000 to 2007, where his total compensation hit more than $1.8-million in 2005-6, making him the highest-paid university president in the country.
Here’s another fun fact: Gee is also an Eagle Scout.
Permalink | | Categories: Higher ed oddities
Antioch faculty won’t go down without a fight
(Antioch College faculty members Anne Bohlen, Peter Townsend and Bob Devine.)
YELLOW SPRINGS — Faculty at Antioch College re-filed a lawsuit Monday against Antioch University, the college’s parent corporation, as part of a larger effort to keep the college open.
Seventeen tenured faculty members filed the suit in Greene County Common Pleas Court, alleging the university broke its contractual obligation with the faculty in its decision back in June to declare financial exigency and close the school at the end of this academic year. The faculty personnel policies and procedures calls for consultation with them before administrators or trustees cut the budget.
The faculty seek a permanent injunction requiring the university follow the faculty policies and prevent it from suspending operations. The lawsuit asks the court to force trustees to pursue “less drastic” means for alleviating the college’s financial crisis: Negotiating a deal with the Antioch College Continuation Corporation, a group of alumni and former trustees with deep pockets (about $9 million) who have hired a turnaround consultant to help it take over operations of the college. You can read more about how that transpired at the bottom of this blog post.
The faculty also ask the court to enjoin the university from liquidating or dispersing its assets, including buildings, land and its endowment. The lawsuit is not about damages or faculty compensation, said Bob Devine, college faculty member and a former president of the institution.
Faculty held a press conference today, March 11, to announce it had re-opened its August lawsuit against the university, which it withdrew in November after it appeared the university was striking a deal with the Antioch Alumni board (and then the ACCC) to keep the college open.
But when university trustees announced Feb. 22 they were going ahead with its original decision to close the school at the end of this academic year for one year, faculty were back to square one.
“One of the great concerns is that in this last period of time that the college is open that the university may start liquidating the assets of the college, because it needs that money,” Devine said. Assets include land, WYSO radio license, Glen Helen Nature Preserve and its endowment. “We think they should pursue those realistic, concrete, less drastic measures” offered by the ACCC, he said.
Faculty are backed by the Alumni Association, which earmarked $1 million from its College Revival Fund for their legal fund. The alumni group — which had previously raised $18 million for keeping the college open until some donors balked — met on campus with faculty and students on March 2 and decided it would commit to a “non-stop Antioch.” The alumni are exploring their own legal avenues for keeping the college open, according to a statement last week.
From Ellen Borgerson, vice president for the alumni association and the fund:
If the ACCC deal succeeds “we’ll be ready to run the College on this campus without interruption. If they don’t, we’ll find someplace else in Yellow Springs to operate, and we’ll to fight to reclaim the campus and the College’s other assets from a University administration that seems bent on destroying everything Antioch has ever stood for.” “But it’s time to stop pretending that the University is negotiating in good faith with the ACCC,” she added. “The University is clearly trying to force people to abandon hope and leave, knowing that it will be impossible to bring the College back once that happens. This is not only bad faith, it is untenable, and Antioch alumni will not stand for this deceptive behavior.”
Antioch University Board Chair Art Zucker posted a statement on a Chronicle of Higher Education blog post in the comments section saying members of the board are “shocked and disturbed” by Borgerson’s remarks and that after working “ceaselessly and collaboratively‘“with alumni, it is still in negotiations with the ACCC.
Here’s a rundown of what’s happened in the last month to prompt this, and what’s next for the lawsuit and a potential deal with the ACCC:
After two days of meetings in Los Angeles, the trustees said Feb. 22 they reaffirmed their June 2007 decision to close the college for a year after negotiations failed with the Antioch College Continuation Corporation, or ACCC, which wanted to take over the school and create its own board of trustees.
Trustees had reversed their earlier June decision in November, contingent on whether alumni and the school could meet fundraising deadlines. The reversal came after the college’s alumni board raised millions of dollars in exchange for keeping the school open. Then trustees took that arrangement off the table in January in favor of exploring a deal with AC3, a group of donors, alumni and Yellow Springs residents.
Trustees said they ran out of time to reach a deal on transferring the financially struggling school to the group.
Faculty said Tuesday they are hoping the lawsuit will pressure the board members to strike a deal with the ACCC rather than risk having their depositions about the college’s finances reach the public eye through the public record of the court system.
“The quickest way for them to get the lawsuit off the table is to negotiate a deal with the ACCC,” said Peter Townsend, environmental science and geology professor who has worked at the college for 38 years.
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Antioch faculty, round two
The “important announcement” from Antioch College faculty that was supposed to happen yesterday is back on, for today at 3:45 p.m. in McGregor Hall on campus.
Antioch College faculty sent out a notice yesterday, March 10, asking the media and others to come to Yellow Springs to hear their plans for the fight to keep the college open and save their jobs. They canceled it later in the afternoon. My colleague Scott Elliott, who writes about K-12 education, wrote about it here on his blog, Get on the Bus. I was out yesterday.
But today the faculty plan to give it another go. I’ll be there and will post the news here right away.
So do I have any predictions about what this announcement is all about?
Last time the faculty acted in unison, they took legal action. They sued Antioch University, corporate parent of the college, in Greene County Common Pleas court. They sought an injunction against the university/college assets, fearful that administrators were planning on selling off the college’s replete portfolio of assets that includes land, WYSO radio license, Glen Helen Nature Preserve, etc. (there was rampant skepticism among college folks about the trustees’ intentions at the time). The faculty dropped the suit when it looked like the alumni, who had raised $18 million in pledges for keeping the college open, were going to hammer out a deal with the university to keep it open.
But as we know from the news on Feb. 22, the university trustees decided to go ahead and close the college for one year in July. Back to square one for the faculty, whose contracts end in June (they get paid through August).
But this time, I’m not sure what to expect. The Antioch College story has had so many twists, turns and total surprises that it has become unpredictable. I’m shrugging my shoulders here.
Come back around 5:00 p.m. today and I’ll try to have an update.
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Sinclair levy and voters over time
Bill Burges, the Cleveland-based political strategist who helped develop Sinclair Community College’s campaign for its levy, just called me to make a point. A good one, actually.
In my Dayton Daily News story about the levy passing at 52 percent, I compared the passage rate to its last levy request in 1998, when that levy passed at 73 percent.
It wasn’t quite an apples-to-apples comparison. To get a clearer picture of what voters think of Sinclair levies over time, I should be including the 1988 levy too. It was a drop since the last time, yes, in straight math terms. But including the 1988 levy results adds some context to the supposed drop. That was Bill’s point. He’s right.
In 1998, the economy was sailing along - and that time around, Sinclair wasn’t asking for new millage, like it did with this 3.2-mill levy on Tuesday. That one passed at 73 percent.
In 1988, two “levy cycles” ago, Sinclair went to voters asking for new millage, just like it did with this levy - and that one passed at 52 percent, exactly the same rate as this new levy.
So you might make a conclusion here: That if voters are inclined to pass a levy, they’re more likely to go for one that isn’t adding new millage. With a levy that adds new millage, they make choices about whether raising their taxes is worth it supporting the public good. You’re probably thinking, “Well, duh.” But that little sliver of context is important to consider when debating whether or not there is tax fatigue in this area.
I think Bill was trying to say that the levy’s seemingly low approval rate didn’t have anything to do with perceived tax fatigue, but more to do with the economy (people get nervous about a recession) and whether or not they wanted to choose to contribute to a public good. When the economy is better, people feel better about paying for a public good. Sinclair focused hard in its advertising on its link to area workforce development - which it argued is important to training people for attracting good jobs here. And Bill’s statements in my March 5 blog post (about how he knew Sinclair was going to have to work hard to get the votes it got) had more to do with persuading voters to see Sinclair as a public good and go for it, despite troubling economic times.
Here’s a question: When you vote on a levy like Sinclair’s, what kinds of things do you consider before you check that “Yes” or “No” box?
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Analysis: Sinclair levy squeaks out a winner
(Sinclair President Steve Johnson with his wife, Tonya, looking pretty exhausted and relieved at the post-election party Tuesday night on campus. Dayton Daily News photo.)
With the largest campaign in Montgomery County behind it — one that includes 17 campaign co-chairs, $794,183 in donations and endorsements from at least 93 local groups — Issue 39, the 3.2-mill levy for Sinclair Community College, barely met with voters’ approval Tuesday, March 4.
Final, unofficial results from the board of elections shows Sinclair’s win squeaked by with 52.39 percent of voters approving it compared with 47.61 percent of voters rejecting it.
After an extensive advertising campaign (about $350,000 spent by Feb. 21) that included television and radio ads, personal appearances and 50,000 phone calls to Montgomery County voters, the levy passed with a smaller margin than its last levy in 1998, when voters approved that 2.5-mill levy at 73 percent. Voter turnout this election compared to that election was about the same: 47 percent of registered voters in Montgomery County cast ballots in both elections, so clearly the levy had less support this time around.
Keep reading to find out what may have caused the drop in support, and to learn what Sinclair plans to do with the extra money it will get as a result of the new levy.
Sinclair officials weren’t surprised last night at the narrow win. The approval rate was consistent with what Cleveland-based political consultant Bill Burges expected, he said after calling the election a win with 97 percent of votes counted. As the levy campaign’s political consultant, he’s been nervous for a year, he said. He thinks the recent news in the last few weeks before the primary about an impending economic recession may have caused some voters to think twice about increasing their property taxes.
“This is the worst economic environment we’ve been in probably since the Rust Belt recession in 1979 to 1983,” he said. “I knew [Sinclair] was going to need every bit of effort they went through to get it passed. Considering recent economic news, this very, very good.”
The 10-year, 3.2-mill property tax levy that passed Tuesday will replace the 1998 levy, costing Montgomery County homeowners $98 a year for every $100,000 in current property value, a $42 increase over the amount homeowners currently pay. The new tax will be collected beginning in 2009.
With the new levy bringing in slightly less than $32 million beginning in 2009, a $12 million increase over the amount its current 2.5-mill levy brings in from Montgomery County homeowners, Sinclair will be able to grow programs to meet the area’s work force development needs, said Sinclair President Steven Lee Johnson on Tuesday night. Johnson and about 150 Sinclair employees and supporters celebrated the win at an on-campus party.
“We know there is a strong demand for nursing programs and other work force development needs, and these are very expensive programs,” Johnson said.
Sinclair will also be able to weather increased enrollment expected as part of Gov. Ted Strickland’s 10-year plan to increase the number of Ohioans with degrees by 230,000. With more than a fifth of its students receiving federal Pell grants — and indicator of a low-income student population — Sinclair says it’s important its tuition stays low for students who otherwise couldn’t afford college.
The levy helps buy down tuition for county residents, Sinclair says. Of the $20 million or so it was getting from its 1998 levy (which expires at the end of the year), about $11 million went directly to subsidizing Montgomery County tuition. The rest of it is spent on operations, scholarships and facilities, Sinclair said.
At $45 per credit hour, Sinclair’s tuition (for Montgomery residents - others pay $73.50) is about $13 lower than the average tuition for other Ohio community colleges with property tax levies. Six other community colleges in Ohio are supported by local tax levies, providing 10-35 percent of their income, according to data at the Ohio Board of Regents. About 70 percent of students taking at least one class at Sinclair are from Montgomery County.
Some readers have emailed me, called me, or posted comments on this blog suggesting Sinclair should raise its tuition a little to increase its revenue rather than go to voters for a new property tax. In the last 10 years, over the course of the last levy, tuition (in real dollars) has only increased about $5 per credit hour. Something to remember: Sinclair, at least for the next year, cannot raise tuition because of a state-mandated tuition freeze. Raise tuition, and it could price many of students out of an education.
And while its share of state support has steadily decreased, it does have that $14.4 million cash reserve (which a board of trustees mandate says it must preserve) that is a major sticking point with some readers, and zero debt (most institutions have debt on their facilities). Sinclair’s President Steve Johnson said before the levy that it wasn’t asking for an emergency bailout, which is usually the case we hear in this area. It’s financially stable, he said, but despite that the 3.2 mills it asked for will barely help it meet its projected budget over the next 10 years. In fact, there may be a slight shortfall. What it really needed, Johnson said, was 3.7 mills to meet its needs. But they knew voters would not support that.
Given all this information, should Sinclair start looking for other alternatives to meet its needs?
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Sinclair levy squeaks out a win
11:30 p.m.
With 95 percent of Montgomery County votes tallied, Sinclair’s 10-year, 3.2-mill levy is passing with 52 percent of voters approving it and 47.25 percent rejecting it. Sinclair officials, after calling the race and announcing the win to employees at a post-election party on campus, called it a squeaker
The passage rate was consistent with what Cleveland-based political consultant Bill Burges expected, he said after the calling the race a win. As the levy campaign’s political consultant, he’s been nervous for a year, he said.
“This is the worst economic environment we’ve been in probably since the rust-belt recession in 1979 to 1983,” he said. “I knew they were going to need every bit of effort they went through to get it passed. Considering recent economic news, this very, very good.”
Sinclair’s last levy, which passed in 1998 and expires at the end of this year, passed at a much higher rate, about 73 percent.
Issue 39, the 10-year, 3.2-mill property tax levy that passed today, March 4, will replace that 1998 levy, which was 2.5-mills. It will cost Montgomery County homeowners $98 a year for every $100,000 in current property value, a $42 increase over the amount homeowners currently pay, beginning in 2009.
The new levy will bring in about $32 million per year each year in tax receipts from Montgomery homeowners, a $12 million increase over the $20 million the college receives from the current levy.
10:15 p.m.
Sinclair Community College’s party for celebrating, officials hope, the passage of its 10-year, 3.2-mill levy in today’s Ohio primary is already starting to dwindle a little as people here seem pretty confident it’s passing and feel it’s safe to go home.
With a little over 60 percent of Montgomery County precincts reporting, Issue 39 is staying above water at a 55 percent passage rate.
9:45 p.m.
With 42 percent of Montgomery County precincts reporting results, the approval rate for Sinclair’s 3.2-mill levy has bumped up to 55.5 percent. About 44.5 percent are rejecting it.
Of Montgomery County’s 368,500 registered voters, a little more than 62,000 have voted on the levy, according to unofficial early results at the board of elections.
9:00 p.m.
It’s still VERY early, but first results from the Montgomery County Board of Elections — a tally of absentee and early voting ballots — shows about 54 percent of 14,614 ballots cast approving Issue 39, the 3.2-mill levy for Sinclair Community College. About 46 percent are rejecting it. About 900 votes were blank, meaning those voters chose not to vote at all on the issue.
The polls closed at 7:30 p.m., and the Montgomery County Board of Elections on Third Street is now a flurry of traffic and activity as poll workers start turning in the ballots from their precincts. As the board of elections starts tallying, it starts posting results at 9:00 p.m.
At Sinclair’s Building 12 across the street, Sinclair officials and supporters are gathered in the Charity Earley Auditorium awaiting the results.
Sinclair is seeking a 10-year, 3.2-mill property tax levy to replace a 2.5-mill levy already on the books that was approved in 1998 and expires at the end of this year. It will/would cost Montgomery County homeowners $98 a year for every $100,000 in current property value, a $42 increase over the amount homeowners currently pay.
The new levy would bring in about $32 million per year each year in tax receipts from Montgomery homeowners, a $12 million increase over the $20 million the college receives from the current levy.
The board of elections expects to have final, unofficial results around midnight tonight, later than usual. Check back for additional updates as the results come in.
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