California’s community colleges, including Allan Hancock College and Cuesta College, rely on bond measures to help fund campus enhancements—anything from adding new buildings to renovating existing structures.
In the Nov. 5 election, voters approved Proposition 2, a statewide $10 billion bond intended for public schools and community colleges. Public schools would receive $8.5 billion for new construction and renovation projects, and community colleges would get $1.5 billion for a mix of new buildings, repairs, land purchases, and equipment.
Hancock is already prepared to take advantage of it.
The Santa Maria community college submitted requests for renovations on Building N or the Sports Pavilion, Vice President of Finance and Administration Dennis Curran said.
“It houses our kinesiology program, our fitness area, our basketball and volleyball courts, classrooms, coaches’ offices,” he said.
The hope is that Building N will get a top-to-bottom modernization, as it was built in the 1960s and hasn’t had an update since.
Curran said the building needs electrical upgrades, plumbing upgrades, and a full redesign to help meet all current California code requirements.
“It’s all for the betterment of our students and for their safety,” he said. “It’s to have better learning environments and better environments for practicing their craft, their athletic craft.”
According to the project study that Hancock submitted to the state, the 53,715-square-foot project would cost $26 million to upgrade—as of 2024. The school is requesting almost $20 million from Proposition 2 bond funds and aims to pay the remaining $6 million from district funds.
But Proposition 2’s passing doesn’t automatically mean that Hancock will get the funds it requested. Curran said community colleges can only submit one facility at a time to the state, and then those projects are ranked by priority.
“We have to do a study and submit that to the state, and they have a scoring process, and all the buildings are prioritized based on their scores,” he said. “They build a cut line based on that priority and the amount of money they have to spend. So, if they have $100 million to spend and the first 10 buildings are $10 million each, those are the ones that will get funded.”
The process takes a few years, Curran said. Hancock is hoping to get funding for Building N in about two years and begin construction in either 2027 or 2028.
Hancock has historically relied on local bond measures to upgrade its campus.
In 2006, Santa Barbara County voters approved Measure I, a $180 million general facilities bond that has been used for improvements on campus.
The campus used $20 million for technology improvements by upgrading both hardware and software used in labs and classrooms, according to the school’s website.
And Hancock used $112 million of the Measure I funds for nine construction or renovation projects in decades-old administration, lab, and classroom spaces, according to its website.
Since 2006, the campus has completed construction on those nine projects, including the recently opened Fine Arts Complex.
The 88,787-square-foot complex opened for classroom enrollment in 2023 and houses labs related to music, dance, theater, ceramics, and painting. The project cost $48 million to complete and sits at the heart of campus.
Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo is also hoping to receive some much-needed funding from Proposition 2, said Cuesta Marketing and Communications Associate Director Ritchie Bermudez.
“It’s too early to tell how much of Proposition 2 will be allocated to Cuesta College for school faculty repairs, but we are ready with our list of prioritized projects,” he said via email.
Cuesta College’s five-year construction plan lays out five projects. At the top of the list is renovation of the 13,824-square-foot business facility, which was constructed in 1975 and has had no upgrades to date. That project is followed by needed upgrades to the school’s science, language arts, and humanities spaces.
“Because of the building’s age, it currently lacks the ability to facilitate state-of-the-art instructional programs and is not capable of supporting new educational delivery systems and teaching methods that are currently utilized by the academic programs,” the five-year construction plan states.
Cuesta College aims to add modern infrastructure and technology to the business building, which is expected to cost $5 million.
One of the last but most expensive renovations on Cuesta’s list is repairing the SLO Campus Center.
“The 33,728-square-foot building will serve as the front door to the campus with a welcome center reinforcing the first experience for new and returning students,” the plan states. “The project aims to implement the master plan goal of gathering interdisciplinary services to central locations and locating those which are oriented to the general public near the entrance to public parking.”
The Campus Center hosts programs such as counseling, financial aid, cashier services, human resources, and administrative services and is expected to cost around $50 million to upgrade.
Similar to Hancock, any money from Proposition 2 wouldn’t be Cuesta’s only bond funds. The college has been using funds from a $275 million bond measure that San Luis Obispo County voters passed in 2014 for campus repairs to acquire new equipment, update classrooms, improve career education programs, repair gas and electric lines, and upgrade technology.
Cuesta has completed dozens of projects through Measure L funds, most notably adding a new aquatics center and data center to the SLO campus, while Cuesta’s North County campus received a new Early Childhood Center and Campus Center.
Reach New Times Staff Writer Samantha Herrera, from the Sun’s sister paper, at sherrera@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Dec 5-15, 2024.