Reasons vary but they include: (1) Concerns with transparency and financial accountability to Third District residents because budget is presented in unfamiliar form unlike that used by cities and towns on the east side of Mingus Mountain; (2) Half century of inequitable focus and expenditure of millions of Third District taxpayer dollars on developing Prescott Campus to the detriment of Third District residents; (3) Refusal to seriously consider creating Administrative College for Third District thus maintaining iron-fisted control with Prescott based executives; (4) Refusal to develop music and performing arts programs for east side residents; (5) Inequitable development of sports and cultural programs in the Third District that to the extreme benefit essentially only residents of Prescott and Prescott Valley; (6) Refusal to reform the Governing Board to provide its members (and public) with regular detailed information about District-wide operations and development.
OPINION. Since June 2013, when Third District Representative Robert Oliphant voted “no” on increasing the Yavapai County primary property tax rate, the three representatives who followed him have all also voted “no” when it came to increasing the property tax rate to support the Community College. What are some of the reasons that explain this consistent opposition to increasing Sedona/Verde Valley tax rates? The following is a list of a few of those reasons:
- Repeatedly, Third District representatives have asked for greater financial transparency
including a demand that the Community College provide an annual accounting to the Third District about the exact amount of revenue it provides the Community College through the District’s contribution via state and federal revenue, County primary taxes, secondary property taxes, and new construction taxes. It has only vaguely and very reluctantly provided some partial information. In addition, the District Representatives have asked the College to provide an estimate of the tuition and government grants it receives because of the enrolled students in Sedona and the Verde Valley. It has received no information about that. And then, an understandable detailed financial explanation of what revenue received was reinvested in the Third District. - The College has been asked in the name of transparency to adopt a budget format that is similar to that used by almost all cities and towns in the County, which is highly transparent. It refuses to do so, and its budget remains less than transparent to the average citizen in the Third District.
- For a half century, the Community College has been developing a robust music education program on the Prescott Campus. It has done little to nothing to develop music programs on the Verde Campus or the Sedona Center. Similarly, it has spent the significant resources to create and develop a performing arts program on the Prescott Campus but nowhere else. Somewhere around 500 or more students attend the Performing Arts classes on the Prescott Campus annually; there are none on the Verde Campus or at the Sedona Center. This has occurred despite the continual efforts of the Third District Representatives asking the College to address these issues.
- Third District Representatives have evinced concerns about the centralization of all major decision-making in Prescott based executives. The College has made it clear it will never allow the Verde Valley/Sedona District to have a major voice in operating the east side facilities; the total veto power over major decisions for Sedona and the Verde Campus are tightly retained in the hands of the executives headquarters on the Prescott campus. And supported by a majority of Governing Board members all of whom are from the west side of the County.
- Third District representatives efforts to improve community college development on the east side of the County have been thwarted by the west-county voting bloc on the Governing Board despite the fact that for more than a half century the Community College has used Third District revenue to develop programs and projects that are almost exclusively aimed at residents of Prescott and Prescott Valley. Facilities exclusive to the west side of the County include: (1) Building a professional tennis court complex for Prescott residents—the College has no tennis team. (2) Building and maintaining an indoor swimming pool and wading/rehab facility for Prescott residents, especially the elderly – the College has no swim team. (3) Since 1988, using Third District primary and secondary property taxes to build, support, and renovate at a cost of millions of dollars the Performing Arts Center, which is realistically a facility attracting and accessible only to persons on the West side of the County. (4) Spending millions of Third District taxpayer money over the years in developing a sports program with eight teams and athletic fields, gymnasium, and all accoutrements with teams realistically only playing games and matches on the west side of the County.
- Third District Representatives have learned that the District now produces at least $2 million a year in tax revenue that is not spent in the District by the College, which they deem unfair. In the past, the Third District as provided many more millions of dollars anually that went into developing the Prescott Campus and other facilities on the west side of the County.
- After more than a half century, Third District Representatives were finally able to persuade Prescott-based executives to construct a Career and Technical Education Center on the Verde Campus. However, a small 10,000 square foot facility was constructed that hardly compares with the 110,000 square foot facility on the west side of the County. Worse, development on the Verde Campus CTE facility is hampered because of the absence of a full-time Dean at the Verde Campus who would spend all of his or her time working with local businesses in the District on a daily basis recruiting students and leaning about local CTE needs. Again, the development of CTE is hampered by the absolute control exerted by Prescott-based executives whose focus is on the west side of the County.
- Third District representatives have been concerned with the loss of full-time faculty on the Verde Campus and at the Sedona Center. Many were cut in 2010 and 2011 and were never replaced. However, the sports programs such as basketball that were cut back in 2010 and 2011 have been recently reinstated and expanded, i.e., men’s basketball, women’s basketball, women’s soccer.
- Third District Representatives have been concerned with the refusal of the Prescott-based executives to consider building student residence halls on the Verde Campus or elsewhere to initiate serious development on the east side of the County and as a practical matter make the east county facilities destination centers to assist in growing student enrollment. Student residence halls, which pay for themselves, can also help alleviate the need for students in the Verde Valley and Sedona to seek expensive private housing if they intend to attend the Community College on the east side of the mountain.
- Third District Reps have expressed concern with the mechanics of how the public hearings involving tax rate increases, which are required by law, are held. For example: (1) The public hearings are only held on the Prescott Campus. There could at least be zoom facilities created at various sites around the County so all County residents would have reasonable easy access to the hearing. (2) Prior to the May hearing in Prescott regarding increasing the tax rate, there are no presentations by College officials to the residents on the east side of the County about the need for the tax rate increase and no open forums in the Third District where the residents’ views can be expressed. (3) Rejection of the committee system entirely by the Governing Board.