GREENSBORO — Greensboro voters might have turned down a $50 million bond to retrofit the city-owned War Memorial Auditorium, but there’s still plenty of public money waiting to be spent on the immediate area surrounding the deteriorating auditorium.
In just a few short weeks, voters across North Carolina will head to the polls. This year – like many others before it – school bond referenda will appear on ballots in a number of counties. Since 1995, North Carolinians have weighed in on 89 bond referenda (.pdf), passing 70 and voting down 19. Such taxpayer largesse doesn’t come cheap, adding up to a whopping $5.8 billion out of the $7.7 billion total requested.
Ballots are in, and the 2005 election is now history. Voters, elected officials, and the non-voting public are left to sift through and interpret the results. While voter frustration was palpable, in the end, not much has changed.
To the applause of UNC leaders and amid self-congratulation, House and Senate members on Wednesday approved $3.1 billion in bonds for North Carolina's public colleges and universities. But debate over equity and accountability continue as UNC leaders face ostensibly their biggest challenge yet - making their case to voters in November.
While Republican lawmakers say they will support the $3.1 billion bond proposal for the UNC campuses, many say they have misgivings about the way the state's public universities are managed. Some are calling for accountability measures.
North Carolina is one of 39 states likely to face a shortfall in higher education spending in the next several years, according to a new report by Harold A. Hovey, a state budget and tax expert with the California-based National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
Bonds may not be the best answer to UNC's rising construction cost, according to a recent analysis by the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. The report comes in the wake of a proposal by the UNC Board of Governors to meet the university's construction needs by allowing the UNC-system to sell "special obligation" bonds and the state to issue "limited obligation" bonds. The proposal is scheduled to reach the General Assembly within weeks.
