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In the past few weeks, have you seen or heard of petitioners hanging around the copper corridor with a sign reading, “45% PROPERTY TAX INCREASE FOR ALL OF PINAL COUNTY BY CENTRAL ARIZONA COLLEGE,” I am writing this editorial to inform you, from a student’s perspective, what this means to me and why it happened.
On May 19, 2015, the Pinal County Community College District Governing Board voted to accept the CAC budget for fiscal year 2015-2016.
This vote followed a truth in taxation hearing where board members voted to increase the current tax rate from $1.91 to $2.76 per $100 of net assessed valuation. In response to concerns expressed by local citizens, the CAC Governing Board voted on June 9 to change the tax rate to $2.30 per $100 of net assessed valuation.
A response to this tax rate included a committee called Citizens for Fair Taxation and chairman Garland Shreves to take action to recall and re-elect CAC’s governing board to make cost saving measures. With great sadness, I am writing because the committee received enough petitions to recall two of the four targeted board members. Petition signatures are currently undergoing verification.
I feel that most of the signatures from our side of the county were acquired through misinforming the public. From Mammoth’s La Casita to Kearny’s Norm’s Grocery, petitioners purposely advertised their sign in a way that was interpreted for all of Pinal County property taxes to increase by 45%, and that if you sign their petition, it won’t happen. Note CAC’s share of the property tax is only 14%, and CAC’s board voted their rate to 20%. Yet, petitioners advertised otherwise.
The initial rate increase was made from a 2-year period of careful consideration to Pinal County residents and CAC’s future. Before this, many cost containment measures were instituted. Please understand that CAC’s state funding was nearly lost this fiscal year. Also, since the year of 2006, state funding for CAC has decreased 80% and tuition has increased 64%.
What the people advertising for the recall in eastern Pinal county DID NOT tell you is that one of the so-called cost saving measures to keep from increasing taxes is to close the Aravaipa Campus.
To the recall supporters, the Aravaipa campus is seen as unnecessary and that its services could be given completely online.
As a student of the Aravaipa campus, I feel targeted. I am furious.
Aravaipa’s location is rural, serves the copper corridor, and aids students like me who cannot afford to attend the Signal Peak campus, or initially transfer to university.
Know this, the Aravaipa campus has yielded the best foundation of my academic career, an ultimate collegiate experience. This is true for many others and myself as students of the Copper Corridor. Advancement of my extremely rural area DEPENDS on Aravaipa as our ONLY access to higher education.
This facility offers vital services such as a learning center and library that teaches research methods, counseling services that assist students far beyond classrooms, financial aid, and many outreach programs. All of these services could never be substituted by online methods.
Closing the Aravaipa campus will terminate access to higher education, leaving my community of Pinal County behind to compete economically.
Why would anyone sign a petition to take away success from future Aravaipa attendees and myself? It’s vindictive. What saddens me is that signers of the petition did not know this. For the supporters of the recall, the message I receive is that higher-ed seeking students in eastern Pinal County are not worth the investment.
/s/ Edward Aguirre
There are news or informational items frequently written by staff or submitted to the Copper Basin News, San Manuel Miner, Superior Sun, Pinal Nugget or Oracle Towne Crier for inclusion in our print or digital products. These items are not credited with an author.
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