Lane Community College has placed a levy on the November ballot aimed at supporting instructional programs and services that are in danger of being cut from its budget.
Ballot Measure 20-120 would raise about $1.4 million per year over the next five years to help LCC fund instructional programs, such as some of the lower-division college classes that students may transfer for credit at the University and elsewhere, according to the college.
Last year, LCC cut $6 million from its budget and 37 positions, LCC president Mary Spilde said.
LCC officials have not gotten far enough in the budgeting process to know what might be cut, said Jay Bozievich, chairman of the Lane Community College Board of Education. But support services were already cut last year, and future cuts might include faculty members and the classes they teach.
“What we’ve cut so far has been everything but academics,” he said.
LCC offers for-credit classes to about 15,000 students a year, giving it the third-largest enrollment of Oregon’s community colleges, according to its Web site.
If passed, the levy would charge taxpayers at a rate of 6 cents per $1,000 of their assessed property value.
Lane Community College last placed a tax measure before voters in 1995.
At a City Club of Eugene debate Friday, Spilde said state funding to Lane has decreased in the years since the Legislature took a larger role in the finances of community colleges.
Before the 1990 passage of Measure 5, which established constitutional limits on property taxes and required Oregon’s general fund to make up the difference in program funding levels, property taxes and tuition contributed the majority of funds to LCC while the state contributed about 20 percent, Spilde said.
After the passage of the measure, the state’s contribution to LCC increased to 47 percent of revenues, Spilde said. She said the state now contributes only 37 percent of revenues, while tuition covers about 34 percent.
“Students are paying a lot more and playing a much larger part in the budgeting of the college,” Spilde said.
Since the 2001-02 school year, state funding for LCC has declined 20.3 percent while the cost of tuition has increased 83 percent, from $38 per credit hour for residential students to $69.50 in 2006-07, according to an LCC press release.
LCC is working to stabilize its finances while providing quality education to students, but the state Legislature has failed to provide the needed funds, Spilde said.
Spilde said 6 cents was the maximum amount that LCC could request in a bond levy.
“In planning for the 2008 budget, it will be more of the same,” Spilde said. “If nothing changes, we will face about a $7 million deficit.”
Tonie Nathan, City Club of Eugene member and former Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate, said LCC is a wonderful school but she opposes passing another levy to solve the school’s funding problems.
Nathan takes issue with the principle behind tax measures because they force people to fund things that they may not want or need, she said.
“When I voted, and I did vote for every bond measure, I realized that I was forcing the little old lady next door, who could hardly support herself and had medical bills to pay, to support schools and parks and things that she would never need,” Nathan said. “I realized that this isn’t the correct way to fund or take care of our problems.”
Nathan suggested that organizations and businesses, which benefit from students and potential employees who use the facilities at LCC, should play a larger role in funding LCC.
“I urge you to give a lot more thought to what you’re voting for and whenever you can, vote against taxes,” Nathan said.
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