Near 60% tax hike planned, Nov. 2022 ballot
Cerritos College District wants new buildings, Green Energy and a front door for emptier campus.
December 13, 2021
By: Brian Maquena
CERRITOS COLLEGE DISTRICT, CALIF. — Property owners could soon see a portion of their annual tax bill skyrocket by about 59 percent, but that’s only the beginning.
“We’re going to have to...start moving towards a sustainable campus,” said Felipe Lopez, vice president of business services at Cerritos Community College District. “That also means the costs of these buildings are going to dramatically go up.”
The Cerritos College District—which includes Downey, Artesia, Bellflower, Cerritos, Hawaiian Gardens, Lakewood, La Mirada, parts of Long Beach, Norwalk, Santa Fe Springs and South Gate—is considering asking voters in Nov. 2022 to approve another bond funding the construction of new buildings and a “front door” on campus.
Complicating matters are state mandates for community colleges to buy 25 percent of their energy from renewable/green energy sources by 2025, and 50 percent by 2030. Another likely cost increase is the rise in construction costs since these proposed bond’s price tag is based on 2020 levels and not the inflationary reality post-2020, according to Lopez.
On Wednesday, Lopez is presenting to the college’s board of trustees a possible solar panel project, which may prove more expensive than the college’s current energy prices.
More construction for an EMPTIER campus?
Further complicating matters is that thanks to the board’s Covid-19 mandates, many of the college’s buildings aren’t used much, per eyewitness reports. Students have chosen to either not enroll or only do online courses as the board implemented mandatory masking and weekly testing for the unvaccinated this semester.
Enrollment since 2020 has been so low that Cerritos College is looking at budget cuts for 2022-2024, according to President Jose Fierro at the Nov. 17 meeting. Previously, emergency funding from the state has allowed the college to avoid budget cuts due to lower enrollment.
Enrollment cuts are probably NOT solely the result of the pandemic. Enrollment fell another 10 percent between November 2020 and November 2021, Fierro said.
During that period, the college implemented a variety of Covid-19 policies that mirror those of the Chinese Communist Party, such as a health passport in spring 2021. The college in the middle of fall 2021 surprised students by implementing weekly testing only for unvaccinated students. Trustee Zurich Lewis voted against this, correctly noting that the Covid-19 vaccine does not stopping the spread of the virus.
Students reported their on-campus classes dramatically shrinking once the weekly-testing mandate for the unvaccinated kicked in. Students also reported their friends dropping classes due to them not wanting either the vaccine nor the hassle of going through a weekly test. Professors have reported and shown resistance against the college using them as unofficial Covid-19 police.
Starting next semester, all on-campus students will be required to take the Covid-19 vaccine and many professors and staff are facing the prospect of losing their jobs, even if they only teach online. An email was recently sent to students informing them that a number of classes next semester were being transitioned to online-only courses.
Bond-tax rates: Measure CC, Measure G and the proposed bond-tax for Nov. 2022
Current tax rates are the result of the 2004 and 2012 bonds, Measure CC and Measure G, which together can charge homeowners up to $50 per $100,000 in property value.
At nearly half a billion dollars, the new bond measure would add an additional $25 per $100,000 in property values that could be tacked onto homeowners. Such an allowance would prove necessary under the current proposals, which has the college’s tax rate hitting nearly $75 per $100,000 by 2031.
The college’s tax rate this year was $42.512 per $100,000 in property valuation. Accordingly, a homeowner with an $800,000-valued property would pay about $340.10 in Cerritos College property taxes. By 2033, that tax rate would be almost $750, more than double the current rate.
Measure CC passed with only 57.7 percent of the vote. This is significant since before Proposition 39, which the state legislature passed in 2000, community colleges needed two-thirds of the vote, about 67 percent, in order to approve bond funding.
“That’s been a tremendous benefit for the community colleges,” said Joanna Bowes, who on Sept. 15 presented the board with information regarding measures CC and G. “Since 2000, there’s been many, many bond measures passed because of the difference in that.”
Measure G passed in 2012 with 70.3 percent of the vote.
The total amount the college received from these two bond measures was $159.88 million and $379.88 million, respectively. Their total costs with interest would be higher.
What TAXPAYERS have and will buy with TAXPAYER money
Together, these bond measures have bought 17 new buildings, seven major renovations, seven remodels, and a total of 90-plus projects. Future projects include a “front door”: “We really don’t have a front door on campus,” said Lopez at the Oct. 6 meeting, “Everything looks exactly the same.”
The college recently issued the last remaining $75 million remaining from Measure G, leaving it without future bond funds to draw from once that money runs out within 3 years, the amount of time state law allows the college to spend the money, according to Lopez at the Oct. 6 meeting.
The college had a “burn rate” of $4 million a month, said Lopez at the Oct. 6 meeting, regarding the spending of bond funding.
The college plans to pay off Measure CC by August 2038. Measure G would be paid off by August 2044.
The high costs and seemingly never-ending spending prompted Trustee Zurich Lewis—the board’s lone vote against the Covid-19 mandates—to ask when, IF EVER, the special bond taxes would end.
Likely never, per Lopez, who gave a then-preview of his solar panel presentation at the Oct. 6 meeting.
“All of those things that I mention are going to dramatically change the look and feel of our campus, and that’s going to end up being very costly,” Lopez said. “None of that is really embedded into our master plan.”
“I don’t anticipate these types of things going away.”
Get involved: NO to mandates; NO to tax increases
Email the trustees and say NO bond measure until they END VAX-AND-MASK MANDATES. If they want to kick your children out of school, starve them out of their money.
It has been reported by unvaccinated faculty/staff that they are being mocked and abandoned by their union, which recently won valuable compensation from the board. Such funding will allow young faculty and staff to get married, per a testimony from one likely-vaccinated staff member. Meanwhile, students have had their career options limited thanks to these mandates limiting them from career training programs.
It’s time to say NO!
Video testimony of these unvaccinated faculty/staff can be seen at the Sept. 15 or Nov. 17 board meetings. More information on that soon.
Come to Wednesday’s board of trustee meeting.
Email trustees here: https://www.cerritos.edu/board/member-directory.htm
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article’s title was updated to more clearly show that Nov. 2022 reflects when the Cerritos Community College District will put the proposed bond-tax increase on the ballot. Per the table shown above, the new bond-tax will begin hitting property owners in 2024.
Hey Brian, the Board of trustees meeting happened. Did they propose this tax increase that you said was planned?