Henry Ford Community College Will Seek Millage Renewal, Increase in November

DEARBORN — Voters heading to the polls in November will be asked to vote on a operating millage renewal for Henry Ford Community College.

The college's Board of Trustees voted 5-1 Monday to put the issue on the November ballot. The college will ask for the 3-mill renewal and an additional 1-mill increase for 10 years, which will generate an estimated $35 million in revenue. Trustee Hussein Berry was absent for the meeting.

Prior to the vote, Trustee James Schoolmaster said he felt the college should only collect the 1-mill increase for three to five years instead of 10 years.

"We may not need the additional money after a certain period of time," he said. "I think three years would be more appropriate."

Trustee Aimee Schoelles said that asking for the increase for a different time period than the operating millage renewal would require the college to separate the millage into two ballot proposals, which she said could be "devastating" to the college.

"My concern is that voters would get confused and approve the increase and reject the renewal because it is a larger amount," Schoelles said.

Trustee Mary Lane expressed her frustration prior to voting, stating that the board was not given enough time to research the millage increase.

"I feel boxed into a corner," she said. "I don't want to ask our residents for millions of dollars without sufficient justification that we're keeping costs low. The cost of education has escalated in the last decade, and I'm worried taxpayers will say no if we keep asking for more money to address bad debt and high costs."

HFCC has a $16.6 million deficit for the 2013-2014 fiscal year. The college has negotiated concessions from employees, raised tuition and eliminated programs to reduce the debt to $6.5 million. Additionally, the college has initiated a tuition amnesty program to try to collect a portion of its $12 million in unpaid student debt.

HFCC President Stan Jensen told the board as of Monday the college has collected $1,275.

Board President Pamela Adams said the board could decide not to collect the millage increase if the college didn’t need it after a few years. Jensen said it would be financially responsible, however, to leverage the millage increase for the full 10 years in order to build up the college's fund reserve for capital projects.

"We've already demonstrated that we can burn through $9 million in the past 10 months," Jensen said. "We're still in very difficult times. It's hard for any of us to know what the next five to 10 years will look like. To think that we'll be out of the woods in two years is optimistic, but I would be cautious. We have a long road ahead."

Schoolmaster suggested moving the millage proposal to another date so it wouldn't coincide with the Dearborn Public Schools millage renewal in November.

In Michigan there are four possible dates that elections can be held each year: The fourth Tuesday in February; the first Tuesday after the first Monday in May; the first Tuesday after the first Monday in August; and the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Schoelles said she feels more confident putting the millage renewal and increase on the November ballot rather than waiting for a future election date in order to allow the college to start collecting funds next year.

"If it fails, we can come back in February with the proposals separated," she said.

In other action:

• The board approved the layoff of Ikram Khaled, department secretary for the Michigan Technical Education Center. The layoff is effective July 1, 2013.