A county college? Look at experience across the country

Published 5:56 pm Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Democratic state Sen. Steve Hobbs has suggested starting a locally supported four-year college. I have doubts.

His proposal would allow Snohomish County, possibly along with Skagit and Island counties, to start a higher-education investment district. The district would have authority to levy a sales tax in Snohomish County and either of the other counties that join the district. The revenue would pay to establish a campus and pay initial operating expenses.

The county government or governments would appoint members of the college board; residents of the district would get at least half of the enrollment slots; the college would not need to go to the Legislature for support; and the area would have control over the nature and direction of the college.

The reason for the move is the slow pace for getting approval for a University of Washington branch in either Everett or North Snohomish County, a pace that has been slowed by disagreement over a location and will probably stop because of the state budget crisis.

While Hobbs has introduced his bill for the higher-ed district in the state Senate, Republican state Rep. Mike Hope has introduced a similar bill in the House.

Before the Legislature pursues this idea, it should look at the experience of other states, where locally controlled colleges and universities have moved to state control and support.

Forty years ago, the University of Omaha was a locally controlled institution. Now, it’s the state-supported University of Nebraska at Omaha.

In Ohio, the universities of Akron, Cincinnati and Toledo were founded as municipal institutions. About 40 years ago, all became state universities.

The City College of New York, along with Brooklyn and Queens colleges and Hunter College in the Bronx, were started as city-controlled institutions. They’re still parts of the City University of New York, but the state now controls and supports the City University and its branches.

Even Washington’s community colleges were started by local school districts in Everett, Shoreline, Aberdeen, Bremerton, Centralia, Highline, Longview, Mount Vernon, Pasco, Vancouver, Wenatchee and Yakima. They now get their money through the State Board of Community and Technical Colleges.

Hobbs, Hope and County Executive Aaron Reardon present the investment district as a startup plan. They envision the state taking over the college, but I wonder whether the state eventually will be able to support one more college until it finds a better way to support those that it has now.

Change in B&O tax needn’t raise other taxes

A letter writer two weeks ago said that my proposal to replace the business and occupations tax on gross receipts with a tax on net profits would force a raise in other taxes to make up for the loss in revenue.

It wouldn’t happen because we’d set the rate of the net profits tax to produce the same revenue as the current gross-receipts tax.

Evan Smith is the Enterprise Forum editor. Send comments to entopinion@heraldnet.com.