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Cuesta College may ask taxpayers to fund building upgrades

December 2, 2013

The Cuesta College Board of Trustees is considering asking taxpayers to fund $180 million of new construction and building repair. [Tribune]

cueata collegeCuesta’s North County campus needs four new buildings at a cost of $80 million and the San Luis Obispo campus requires $100 million in repairs and upgrades to aging buildings, college officials say.

“We can’t exist in those much longer,” Cuesta President Gil Stork said. “The modular buildings, as they get older, will need continual upgrading and improvements and this is just money down the drain.”

On Wednesday, the Board of Trustees will discuss the results of a survey conducted to gauge public support of a possible bond measure to pay for the building upgrades. The board will decide next year how it plans to fund the construction.

The four new buildings Cuesta officials have proposed constructing on the North County campus are a student services center, a trades and technology center, a building with classrooms and an early childhood development center.

 


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Just as a point of reference, if I remember correctly, the current SLO Cuesta Campus (less the new administration building and performing arts center) cost something like $20-22M, all in.


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Back in the ’70’s you could by a house in Anaheim for $35,000.00


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Poor analogy as the land Cuesta sits on was received at no cost.


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And the land cost relevance was ? Mine included the land :)

I am not sure of what you included in you $22m but it must be referring to eeeearly Cuesta buildings. Btw… the “new” Admin Building is around 30 years old and the Technical Building (sp) must have been $20m by itself.

I believe if you take the current cost of construction…lets say Allen Hancock’s new buildings (paid for by their recent bond measure) of about $450.00 a sq ft for a commercial instructional building compare to 1972 of maybe $35.00 you will of course see a dramatic difference. Repairing a roof, a heater, asphalt will see the same cost variance. I am not saying what Cuesta is talking about is not expensive but to compare costs to the 1970’s and 80’s tilts the picture just a bit. Maybe I am not seeing your point if that was not your intention.


btw…82 out of 86 Districts in the State support their Community Colleges, are you saying SLO knows better than say Santa Barbara or San Mateo or the other 80 communities?


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Before agreeing to give Cuesta a penny more I would also demand to see an existing facilities utilization study. I just flipped through Cuesta’s on-line course catalog and noticed that no classes begin at 07:00. I noted one that began at 07:30 and a handful that begin at 08:00. Why is that?


I suspect if asked, Cuesta administrators would be quick to conclude that the average Cuesta student is far different than the typical Cal Poly (where classes begin at 07:00) student and that earlier classes would be under subscribed.


That might be the case to some degree but there must be ways to more fully utilize Cuesta’s existing physical plant.


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Like maybe offering the classes that everyone needs to graduate only at that time or in the evening. Of course, you would need not only dedicated students but teachers. My guess is no one wants a class until 9 – 10:00 so they can all sleep in.


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Well, since they’re asking, I’ll answer them; “NO!”


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“Cuesta College may ask taxpayers to fund building upgrades”

Since when do they ask?


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I remember years ago when the current SLO Cuesta Campus was built — due in large part to tax revenue from building Diablo Canyon. I thought it was fairly extravagant for a community college campus.


Take a walk around Cuesta and view it from a standpoint of facility maintenance. It doesn’t have more students on campus at any one time then a large high school but it must cost 5-10x more to maintain from a facilities standpoint.


There haven’t been a great deal of classroom space added since my visit years ago but they sure have a nice big administration building and a performing arts theater.


I think Cuesta needs to demonstrate for a number of coming years that it can function with integrity and resolve for the long haul. It also needs to take a very close, public look at its budget. Only then should it have the courage to ask the taxpayers for more money.


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If you own your home and you vote for a bond issue, you are just increasing your “rent” to the county. The government whether it is the local, federal or state, always have their hand out. I have had enough with our educational establishment where all problems are solved with more money. Our schools are a mess, money is not the problem.


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Cuesta has been fiscally mismanaged for years … eliminate most of the “administration inflation” and put those dollars to the pet projects. Have you ever known of an agency spending other people’s money that ever had enough. How many of the students attending Cuesta are from out of the county … why will only county residents be asked to support more money for these construction projects? Live within your means Cuesta!


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Bingo, you hit this on target. If anyone has been following the saga regarding community colleges, you will find that the trend is on to make this 4 year colleges. Cuesta, like many other “community” colleges now house more and more students from our of the “community”. Go to Uncle Jerry, taxpayers gave him sales tax revenue last November for “education” and the State is going to have a $10 BILLION surplus. Ask them for the handout!


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Apply to a U/CS school and you have to prove you’re a resident of CA or you pay big bucks. Maybe that model needs to be followed for some community colleges as well?


THOUSANDS of students use Cuesta as a hopeful gateway to Cal Poly. That’s been going on for decades. Perhaps they simply need to pay a surcharge/unit if they cannot prove they have lived in the county for three years prior to entering Cuesta?


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Community Colleges are dictated as to what they can and cannot charge a student. You can’t just “add a charge”. As to SLOBIRS comment…Uncle Jerry does not need to worry about nearly all of the Community Colleges in the State as nearly all (85 out of 89) have local bonds to support their needs, most have multiple. San Luis Obispo lags behind the whole state in supporting their local Community College. Btw…nearly all Community College that are any good feed UC/CSU. Name the city, spot the UC/CSU look for the Community College, same demographics. The difference is that all of these Districts get support from their community…except SLO. Just sayin….


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There is a fundamental problem that you don’t want to address.


Cuesta draws a large number of students from outside the county who either want to live in the area or hope to use their time there as a springboard to Cal Poly.


Many, many other CA community colleges do not face this type of demand.


LA County has a number of CCs and UCs/CSs in it. I sincerely doubt many move to LA and begin taking classes at Pierce College or West LA College because they want to live in LA or because they feel it will help them enter Cal State Northridge or UCLA.


It’s simply not right that SLO County residents continue to pay the way of those from Fresno and Palo Alto.


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Cuesta as with Santa Barbara, San Diego and many other schools have the same situation of migrating students. I have no problem at all understanding this. I know of many students that moved from Fresno to Santa Barbara and San Diego for the Social life and close approximation to a UC or CSU they hoped to attend. This again is an easy fact for you to verify. Your idea that SLO brings in a larger number of transfer students than say Santa Barbara is unfounded and easy to verify as incorrect. Simply pull up their demographics.

The fact is that these Districts still pass bonds for their District because they feel these students benefit the local economy. If you are saying you believe the cost to keep Cuesta operating is more than the benefit of these student to the economy, you are going against economic studies across the state. Easy facts 82 out of 86 CC Districts have passed a local bond for their District, many with the same or heavier migrating student population. Why do you think that is….

And Palo Alto coming to SLO….where did you get that one? Did you even look up Cuesta and Palo Alto’s numbers before this statement?


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Sorry, typo…85 out of 89 Districts have passed local bonds. my error.


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Let me clarify the Uncle Jerry comment…I don’t know what G. Brown believes or does not believe. The truth is that the State has no intention of funding repairs as they have in the past and that communities have ensured that their CC remains a viable economy booster for their County. In no way am I saying that the State does not “need to worry” about its schools.


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This is the same school that was in danger of losing its accreditation and they want more money from us? Remember a few years ago they wanted $330 MILLION and when that did’t pass the President Marie Rosenwasser was outta there! I think they just pick numbers to see what will fly. Don’t forget all the other taxes we will be asked to pony up in the next few years including renewal of Measure Y in SLO and all the new fees in the County.


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Funny, they don’t ask the taxpayers for money for to raise the salaries of boards members, the president or administrators, do they?


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But that is why they never have enough money for repairs or improvements


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