MHCC pursues yet another bond measure

Target of $75 million, to be voted for in May

Mt. Hood is at it again: After a failed attempt to pass a general obligation bond measure last May, college officials are working to push through a scaled-down version this year.

The measure will be on the May 16 Special Election ballot in Multnomah and Clackamas counties, for all voters who live within Mt. Hood’s service district boundaries.

Instead of asking for $125 million again, the district will be going after $75 million in bond authority. Most notably, the planned rebuild of the Maywood Park campus has been dropped. Last year, “the Maywood community did not endorse the bond – we got a big, negative goose egg from them,” said Jim Zordich, MHCC District board member for Zone 2.

“We were going to demolish the current facility which is in dire physical condition right now, as it is,” Zordich said. “The ground on which that building is constructed is less than stable.”

The biggest project the college still hopes to bring to fruition is building a state-of-the-art Applied Technology building to replace the one on the eastern end of the Gresham main campus. Currently, the new building is estimated to cost $23 million, according to Zordich. “Design changes would affect the cost of this, but we need the Advanced Technology center because we need to offer new programs in the area of technology.”

With the passage last November of Measure 98, which gives high schools compensation for maintaining their technology programs, “our hope here at Mt. Hood (is) that we can ally with the high schools and create a pathway as we do with our general education programs to accommodate those students who enter into technology programs (here),” said Zordich.

The college will be offering a new Mechatronics program next fall, he noted. “Basically, we are providing the training for the people who are going to repair the robotics that are more extensively being used in manufacturing,” he said. The proposed Applied Technology center would house the Mechatronics program.

Eliminating existing MHCC debts is another endeavor the college will pursue if the bond passes. Mt. Hood owes about $23 million, which takes away $2 million every year from the school’s operating revenue, said Zordich.

If the college had that $2 million in its operating budget, the need to increase student tuition rates every year would be reduced.

“One of the issues that I was instrumental in pioneering was the tuition guarantee program where a student comes in at a rate of tuition that is guaranteed throughout their two, three, or four-year program here at the college,” said Zordich. “Now, that’s costing the college in terms of revenue loss, because we’re not raising the increase.”

Currently, the board is considering a $2 per-credit tuition increase for new, incoming students. “That is nominal compared to OIT, (Oregon Institute of Technology) which is now predicting a 10 percent increase; Chemeketa (Communality College) is talking about a $5-$6 increase,” Zordich said. “We have a projection from Jennifer DeMent in our business office… in order for us to keep our heads above water, financially speaking, we would have to charge $15 more in tuition for a period of four years just to maintain parity” fiscally at Mt. Hood, he said.

“That would be horrendous, I don’t think any student would be able to afford that, so we have to be realistic.”

The proposed bond also would pay for physical upgrades of the Gresham campus in order to withstand earthquakes. “It was built to 1960s seismic standards… all of those concrete brick walls have to be structurally retrofitted, and it’s just common sense,” Zordich said.

The gymnasium, or Yoshida Event Center, would be the first building to receive seismic upgrades because it’s a designated community relief center for disasters, needed for information services and emergency care, noted Zordich.

If the bond passes, property tax owners would pay about $.23 per $1,000 of their assessed property value, which adds up to just under $50 a year for a property valued at about $200,000, according to Zordich.

Taxpayers who itemize their income tax returns may be able to write off the tax as a charitable contribution, lessening the impact, Zordich also noted.

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