As North Carolina voters decide which candidates to back on Election Day, they must also figure out the answer to another question on the ballot: whether or not to issue $3.1 billion in bonds to fund higher education in the state.
The bond referendum, which voters will address Nov. 7, would provide $2.5 billion to the 16 campuses in the University of North Carolina system, $600 million to the state's 59 community colleges and $65.9 million to UNC-TV, the state's public television network.
The money from the bonds would finance the schools' renovation of outdated buildings and construction of new ones. But although many people-especially representatives of the schools affected-agree that some of the facilities are in disrepair, not everyone accepts the argument in favor of such a large amount of money. In 1998, for example, the General Assembly voted against a similar plan for the 16 universities in the UNC system.
With North Carolina's debt among the lowest in the nation, advocates of the plan say $3.1 billion would not be an inordinate amount of debt to carry.
Supporters of the referendum are also quick to point out that State Treasurer Harlan Boyles has said that issuing bonds would not raise taxes, since the payments for the debt will be spread out over 25 years.
"It will not cause taxes to go up...," said Evelyn Hawthorne, associate vice chancellor for government relations at UNC's Chapel Hill campus. "It will be well within existing revenue streams."
However, the bonds could make a tax cut less likely, said George Leef, director of the Raleigh-based Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a branch of the conservative John Locke Foundation. Although Leef said he did not support the referendum, he added that the foundation takes no stance on the issue.
Supporters have adopted a sense of urgency in this debate, and they say the schools' facilities cannot keep up with the rising enrollment across the state. Because of inadequate space, some colleges report that they have had to turn students away. At North Carolina Central University, for example, administrators expect a 49 percent enrollment increase by 2008. Carmelita Spicer, director of public relations at NCCU, said the school currently possesses biology buildings with no gas, distilled water or working fume hoods; dormitories with outdated electrical wiring and lead- or asbestos-containing materials; and an unusual number of classes so crowded that only seniors can take them.
"We're going to need to have the facilities up to standard to attract and retain students," she said.
According to the proposed bond plan, NCCU would receive $118.7 million-$36.8 million of which would go to the construction of a new science complex that would replace structures built in the 1930s. Spicer said the school does not-and will not-have the funds to repair their facilities on their own. "We don't have the private donors...," Spicer said. "The alumni giving is not as high [as at private institutions], and state funding has been limited in the past."
Hawthorne said the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was suffering from similar difficulties: outdated science laboratories and classrooms with desks bolted to the floor. UNC-CH would receive $499.3 million if the referendum passes. Its primary expenditure would be on the construction of a new science complex in two phases, totaling $88.4 million.
But, citing State Construction Office reports, Leef said the referendum should not call for a full $3.1 billion. The SCO reviews all state buildings every three years. Leef said the most recent SCO study of Memorial Hall at UNC-CH reported that the building needed $1.8 million for renovations, whereas the bond referendum provides $9 million for renovations and an addition. "The sky won't fall if this doesn't pass," Leef said. "It need not cost nearly that much.... It's not true [that new buildings are needed] in every case, and where it isn't true, I don't see a good justification to borrow."
Although state universities would receive the money from the referendum without strings attached, community colleges would receive funding for new construction only if county governments equally match state expenditures. This matching requirement would be waived or reduced for lower-income counties, and funds for renovation of existing facilities would not be subject to a matching requirement.
If the referendum passes, Durham County will have to provide $9.4 million in matching funds for Durham Technical Community College. The county already provides Durham Tech with $3.2 million in annual funding appropriations, said Wanda Winslow, director of marketing and communications at the school. The remaining $6.2 million, she explained, could be covered by some of the $17 million allotted for the school in the Capital Improvement Program, a long-term, $252 million plan for construction throughout Durham County that county commissioners passed in June. In this way, Winslow said, there would be no need to raise county taxes further.
Winslow said that because Durham Tech's funding needs are so pressing, the county itself would likely have to finance the repairs if the referendum does not pass. "In essence, what happens [if the bond fails] is the county would bear the full responsibility for the facilities' needs," Winslow said.
If the bond passes, Durham Tech would receive a total of $15.4 million-$2.1 million for repairs and renovations, more than $9 million for new construction on the Durham campus and $4 million to create a satellite campus in Orange County.
But Leef said the state government does not understand the needs of community colleges as well as local governments, so the referendum's proposal to provide money to all 59 community colleges at once is mistaken. "Who knows what those institutions [across the state] need?" Leef said. "We don't, here in the Triangle. Local voters do."
The N.C. school system already provides relatively high subsidies to students, and Leef called for reform of this system to reduce the amount of money taxpayers must contribute to education. "If we just dump the money that they want in their lap [with the bond initiative], no one will be thinking about more than just baby steps in tuition," he said.
But supporters of the referendum argue that because of its importance to the economy, higher education should be meaningful to everyone in the state, not just those who attend college.
In an opinion piece published in several newspapers last month, Duke President Nan Keohane emphasized that having an educated workforce would attract employers to the region.
"There is no investment we can make as important as the continuing investment in higher education...," Keohane wrote. "Voting for the referendum will fuel economic growth without raising taxes, and will attract good jobs to every region of North Carolina."
And Hawthorne, of UNC-CH, pointed out the worldwide importance of universities.
"In a nutshell, the research that goes on at Duke and at Carolina benefits all North Carolina voters and, in fact, the world," she said. "There would be no Research Triangle Park without Carolina and N.C. State University and Duke."
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