The candidates in the 2022 WCC Trustees Election are not simply vying for the right to attend meetings. For the residents of Washtenaw County, here’s what’s on the table:
WCC Trustees will spend your tax dollars
The authority to spend tax collections: During the upcoming term (2023-2028), Washtenaw County taxpayers will pay between $375M-$400M in WCC taxes. The Trustees have broad, nearly unrestricted authority to spend this money.
The Trustees can seek additional taxes
The authority to seek additional taxes: The current crop of Trustees adamantly opposes voter-approved bond/millage combinations to pay for capital expenditures on campus. If you think WCC already collects too much in taxes, this position might suit you. With every choice comes consequences, right? The alternative to seeking tax-backed bonds is to issue bonds that are guaranteed by the money WCC already collects for its ordinary operations. This actually limits what WCC can do because the General Fund is only so big. Fewer buildings get rehabilitated; more major problems get ignored; and the eventual cost of rehabilitation grows astronomically. This strategy is – bar none – the most expensive way maintain the campus facilities. It also takes operating funds away.
WCC Trustees will raise tuition and fees
The authority to set tuition and fees: Community college funding is a zero-sum game. If Lansing gives less money, then the local taxpayers and students must make up the difference. If property tax collections fall, the State (maybe?) and the students need to pony up. When the Trustees raise tuition by $4 or more per credit hour at WCC, enrollment drops. That pattern has held up for decades. WCC students cannot afford major increases in tuition and fees, so when costs rise too much, the students leave.
The Trustees are supposed to provide oversight
The ability to hire and fire the President: The WCC President reports to the Trustees the voters elect. In theory, there’s some accountability there. However, the Board of Trustees has slowly abdicated most of its statutory responsibilities to the people of Washtenaw County. Today, the Trustees provide very little oversight and the results have been spectacular. (Not in a good way.)
WCC now has 12 Vice Presidents. I like WCC, but in the cold, hard light of day, it is a medium-sized community college by virtually any measure. Similarly sized community colleges have between 2 and 5 Vice Presidents. Statewide community college systems don’t even have 12 Vice Presidents. And make no mistake about it: Vice Presidents are expensive. With salaries and benefits for each of these administrators, you’re probably talking about $2M-$2.5M annually. But the expenses don’t stop there. Each of these Vice Presidents has at least one Executive Secretary that goes along with the position. With salaries and benefits, that’s likely another $700,000-$750,000 per year.
To put those costs in perspective, that represents the tuition and fees collected from between 820 and 985 full-time students each year. And to put that in perspective, that’s about one-quarter of WCC’s full-time student population. Finally, during the term of the WCC Trustees you elect in November, these 12 Vice Presidents will cost the Washtenaw County taxpayers about $20M in salaries, benefits and support staff. Is that really how you want your educational taxes being spent?
WCC Trustees can build buildings
The ability to build buildings: There aren’t any significant legal restrictions on the kind of buildings that the Trustees can authorize. That’s how WCC came to own and operate The Health and Fitness Center at WCC. This building was built with the intention that WCC students would NEVER have access to the building, except as private-paying customers. (Even though their tuition dollars help pay the debt on the building.) The current Master Plan includes the construction of a hotel and conference center as a “high priority” item. As with the Health and Fitness Center, a hotel would not support the mission of the college, but that does not prevent the Trustees from building one. Or making the students pay for it. The current Master Plan also calls for the construction of “retail outlots” on the perimeter of the WCC property. That would also be completely irrelevant to the mission of the College, but there’s nothing preventing the Trustees from spending your tax dollars and student tuition money to do it.
It matters who you vote for because two of the three candidates on the ballot have established voting records that have made all this possible. The real question is: What could WCC have been like if these Trustees had committed themselves to providing actual oversight?
Photo Credit: Truthout.org , via Flickr
