Pulaski Tech to seek 1.9-mill rate increase

Time right for vote, trustees decide

Pulaski Technical College will ask county voters on March 11 to consider adding 1.9 mills to property-tax rates to provide an additional $11.4 million annually to support the two-year school’s operations and capital projects, its board of trustees decided Thursday.

If approved, the millage increase would add $38 to the annual property-tax bill of a home valued at $100,000. Revenue would be collected beginning in 2015; the college would begin receiving the revenue in 2016.

Proceeds from the millage would go toward academic advising and counseling; information-technology infrastructure upgrades; renovation of the mathematics and science laboratories on the college’s main campus in North Little Rock; improvements to workforce-training programs; and expansion of community education opportunities, college officials said.

Pulaski Tech is one of seven state-supported, two-year colleges that aren’t supported by a local tax. The other 16 colleges collect local taxes - either sales taxes of up to 0.375 percent or property taxes of up to 4 mills.

The board has considered seeking a dedicated millage for years and at one point even decided to hold a summer 2012 election before eventually postponing the initiative. But a unanimous board concluded Thursday that the timing was right.

“It’s our turn,” board member John Suskie said.

The outcome of Thursday’s meeting didn’t seem to be in doubt. A news release announcing the board’s unanimous vote to seek the millage was made available before the meeting began at the school’s Business and Industry Center on East Roosevelt Road.

“We have deliberated,” board Chairman Ronald Dedman said. “Now is the time for action.”

Last month, school officials also petitioned the Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board to approve the feasibility of forming a technical college district for Pulaski Tech as required under Arkansas Code Annotated 6-53-601. That law also gives Pulaski Tech and other two-year schools the power to call elections.

The coordinating board approved the request at a special meeting later Thursday morning.

If voters approve the 1.9 millage request, Little Rock property owners would see their property-tax rate rise from 70.1 mills to 72 mills. Little Rock property owners have the highest millage rate in the county, according to a listing of 2012 millage rates on the Pulaski County treasurer’s office website, pulaskicountytreasurer.net.

The community of East End has the lowest property-tax rate. Its millage rate would rise from 50.5 mills to 52.4 mills.

A mill is one-tenth of a cent, generating $1 of property taxes for every $1,000 of assessed value. A county assesses property at 20 percent of its appraised value, and the assessment is multiplied by the millage rate to determine the taxes owed.

Members of the school’s board of trustees said Thursday that the school has struggled for too long on funding that is at half the level the state’s funding formula recommends.

According to school officials, Pulaski Tech receives about $2,010 per student in state funding. The state average is $3,714.

Student tuition and fees are the college’s other primary revenue source. Without local funding, the college has been “implementing steady but modest tuition increases almost yearly,” Dedman said.

In February, the school announced that it was increasing tuition 5.5 percent for the 2013-14 academic year. Under the new tuition and fee schedule, a full-time student taking 15 credit hours pays about $1,781 per semester, depending on his course of study.

That tuition increase from $90 to $95 per credit hour was expected to raise about $1.2 million in additional revenue.

At the same time, the trustees also approved new fees, including a $7 per credit hour technology fee to help maintain and expand computer facilities, Web-based services and campuswide technology projects; and a library fee of $10 per semester to cover the cost of maintaining library hardware and software, student printing and subscription costs.

Under the millage proposal, students who live in Pulaski County and represent nearly 72 percent of the college’s total enrollment of 10,528, would receive a $10 per credit hour tuition discount. A Pulaski County resident taking 15 hours per semester would save $300 a year.

Given the challenges the college faces, Dedman said after the meeting Thursday that the decision to seek a dedicated millage was only a matter of timing. The board tried to avoid conflicts with the ballot initiatives of other taxing entities, such as when Little Rock sought and voters approved a local sales tax in 2011.

“You try to time it so as not to get in the middle of someone else’s election,” Dedman said.

The timing also allowed the college’s new president, Margaret Ellibee, to “get established,” he said.

Ellibee, formerly vice president for strategic effectiveness and advancement at Waukesha County Technical College in Wisconsin, was hired last year to replace Dan Bakke, who retired after12 years of leading the college.

“Everything has fallen into place,” Dedman said.

Ellibee fielded several questions Thursday from members of the Higher Education Coordinating Board, which held a special meeting via conference call to consider the feasibility of forming a technical college district. Higher education officials had to go back in their records to 1973 to find a similar feasibility petition.

In particular, the board pressed her on whether Pulaski Tech already had a planto spend the money. Board member Kaneaster Hodges noted the board would be “more comfortable” knowing such details because “we’re going to cause an election to occur.”

At both meetings, Ellibee said the school, in conjunction with area businesses, has planned to focus the spending on several priorities. They include:

$11.5 million to improvements to the college’s internal operations involving academic advising, and the information-technology infrastructure and data systems to “improve student services and increase student success.” The school has only six academic advisers now.

$4 million to renovate the mathematics and science laboratories, which the college said would increase student success in science, mathematics and technology.

$10 million to update and improve the college’s technical, industrial and manufacturing program “to respond to local business, industry and workforce training needs.”

The proceeds from the millage also would go toward ongoing annual costs of $2.5 million for a new information-technology center and $750,000 for advanced manufacturing.

Given state support levels, Hodges told fellow board members, initiatives such as Pulaski Technical College’s are “critically needed.”

“It’s a bold but necessary step,” he said.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/13/2013

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