Will Merced College ask taxpayers to support another bond? Here’s why it’s possible

Merced College trustees voted Tuesday to explore putting a general obligation bond on the Nov. 8 ballot to maintain its Los Banos campus’ facilities and programs amid diminishing state funds.

While there was support for the bond, the board opted to proceed cautiously, voting unanimously to move forward in selecting a survey and polling consultant to assess how receptive the community would be.

“The survey piece is probably the least risky part because it’s behind the scenes, it’s not public, and once you get results you can decide if it’s the best course of action once you look at the numbers,” said Chris Vitelli, Merced College president and superintendent.

The surveyor would decide which zip codes to pose the survey to, and a statistician would calculate the chances of a bond getting passed based on the amount of support in the community, Vitelli said.

“Then we could have a board workshop to determine whether or not you want to continue down this path,” Vitelli told the board.

The bond amount the college district would require in order to meet the need is still unclear.

Trustees have reason to be apprehensive about whether putting another bond measure before voters will work.

In March 2020 local voters rejected Measure J, a $247 million bond measure that would have paid for the renovation of old buildings, built new ones and modernized the college’s career and technical education programs. It needed 55% of the vote to pass, and only mustered 44.4% approval from Merced County voters.

The last time the college district went out successfully for a bond was in 2002. That bond is set to expire in 2025. “Still got a little PTSD from that experience,” Vitelli said. “We learned a lot from that experience. There are several things we could change.”

With diminishing financial support from the state to maintain Los Banos’ campus buildings and facilities — as well as expand the campus to accommodate its growing student population and the programs that attract them — trustees are looking for ways to make up for the lack of funds.

With the support of the board, college staff will now pick the surveyor to conduct a voter survey between February and April, plus identify the needs of the Los Banos campus from March to June and determine the bond boundary map between April and July.

Based on the outcome of the survey and those other factors, the college board would then vote whether to go out for a bond in August in time for the November election.

With the recent failure of the last effort to pass a bond measure, some board members were skeptical about trying again so soon.

“It feels like it’s the wrong time for a few reasons,” said trustee Carmen Ramirez. “The first is that it feels the entire country is uncertain about what’s happening financially. I don’t know how I would feel about opening up my wallet for something new, not knowing what the trend in the economy is.”

Others were more optimistic.

“After (the failure of Measure J), I feel our image at Merced College was temporarily, I guess, questioned in some aspects,” said trustee Ernie Ochoa. “But looking at our community perception today, it’s very positive. The entire community holds Merced College in a very high standard.”

The board would have to file a resolution with the Merced Country Registrar of Voters or Merced County Clerk by Aug. 12 to be included on the Nov. 8 ballot.

This story was originally published January 12, 2022 at 11:50 AM.