Pima College makes its case

After losing $221 million in state funding over the last two decades, Pima Community College is asking voters to approve a $250 million bond in November.

Proposition 430, if approved, would expand various “Centers of Excellence” to address waitlists, renovate the East and Desert Vista campuses and refinance existing debt.

It has been more than 30 years since Pima Community College last asked the public to approve a general obligation bond.

In some respects, those were the halcyon days for PCC funding.

Many likened its finances to a three-legged stool of federal and state funding, local property taxes and student tuition. Fast-forward to today and the state Legislature has slowly whittled down one of the legs until there is nothing left but a nub.

The Legislature eliminated community college construction funding in 2009, dropped operational funding in 2015 and, this year, stopped funding adult education programs.

At the same time, the federal government has attempted to cut federal grants across the country, including PCC’s widely popular Upward Bound program. A court challenge reversed the Trump administration’s decision, but college officials are not optimistic about future federal funding.

Officials say the college has a choice: Ask the community to approve a $250 million bond in November or make drastic cuts.

And it is not like the college hasn’t been looking to tighten its belt. It has saved an estimated $4 million through staff attrition and is looking to close its district office in midtown Tucson by the end of the year.

And even just refinancing existing bond debt through the proposed bond would save the college an estimated $4 million through lower interest rates.

Pima Community College Governing Board Chair Greg Taylor said it wasn’t an easy choice to put the bond on the ballot, but the college has spent the last decade without consistent support from the state of Arizona.

PCC’s executive vice chancellor for finance and administration, David Bea, said there have been internal discussions about using a bond to address long-term funding gaps for about a decade.

While the state Legislature has set aside millions of dollars in one-time funding for specific PCC programs over the years, it has done little to address the backlog of deferred maintenance or the cost of operating popular industry programs, including training for public safety officers and first responders.

Many of these “Centers of Excellence” — PCC’s term for specialized facilities designed to address regional workforce needs — have waiting lists.

Bea said the issue isn’t just the need for more classroom space. Students training to become paramedics need the latest equipment, and those in the college’s Automotive Technology and Innovation Center need to learn how to fix electric cars, not Ford Edsels.

For some programs, the college has created cohorts at these centers, allowing one group to use the facilities in the morning and another to use them at night.

Officials estimate the bond would cost the owner of a home worth $250,000 an additional $31 a year in property taxes.

Here is an overview of where the $250 million would go:

While college officials are focused on what the bond can do for the college, they quietly acknowledge there are big decisions ahead for PCC if voters reject Prop 430.

Opting to close and either lease or sell the midtown offices on Broadway was a relatively easy choice to make — we don’t imagine there are many people who are fighting to keep an administrative building open.

But officials told us that closing one of the major campuses is also a possibility.

Enrollment still hasn’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels, but it has steadily increased for the last four years. Roughly 60,000 people are enrolled at PCC this fall.

The Downtown and West campuses have the highest enrollment. The college has also made sizable investments in both of those campuses — as well as its Aviation Technology Center — in the last decade.

That leaves the Northwest, East and Desert Vista campuses as the most likely candidates if the college is eventually forced to sell one of the properties.

And each of these campuses has built-in regional supporters who would flood PCC Governing Board meetings for months if their campus landed on the chopping block.

Officials say there are smaller decisions they could make instead of closing a campus, including cutting less popular classes and laying off staff in certain departments.

But considering the college governing board is putting forward a $250 million bond, those solutions are more akin to a Band-Aid than a long-term solution.

The college could also choose to raise property tax rates aggressively over the next decade or increase tuition, but both would be politically unpopular.

If you are really on the fence, the Pima Foundation is holding three public events over the next two weeks to answer questions about Prop 430. All sessions start at 6 p.m.

Trying to fill those seats: As Tucson Unified School District officials solicit feedback from the public about closing schools, they're hearing concerns about class sizes, transportation and neighborhoods losing their identities after schools close, the Daily Star's Sierra Blaser reports. Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo told parents the district is spending money maintaining half-empty schools when that money could be used to help other schools flourish, per KGUN's Craig Smith. The Arizona Luminaria’s Shannon Conner pointed out that the gym where the discussion was held was half-empty, but TUSD Governing Board President Ravi Shah still put a positive spin on getting 100 people to show up.

A blind eye in the sky: The feds spent billions on surveillance towers along the U.S.-Mexico border, but the cameras on those towers do a terrible job detecting migrants dying near them, per a joint project between MIT Technology Review and the Times of San Diego. The project pulls from data gathered by Southern Arizona’s No More Deaths and Humane Borders, along with data from Texas. All told, they counted more than 1,000 people who died within range of border surveillance towers from 2015 to early 2026.

Seeing which way the wind is blowing: As data centers become a key complaint from both Democratic and Republican voters in Arizona and across the country, Republican U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani publicly called for data center companies to cover any higher energy costs they cause. He’s supporting the Ratepayer Protection Act, saying on Twitter that “if data centers drive up energy costs, they MUST pay their own way” and, in a press release, that “Arizona communities deserve a voice in how growth happens in their own backyards.”

Won’t let them play through: The Air Force should be the ones cleaning up PFAS pollution in Tucson's groundwater, not a golf course company, Daily Star columnist Tim Steller writes. A nonprofit wants to develop the “Warbird National Course” at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, and has pledged to clean up the PFAS the military base has let seep into the groundwater. Eventually, the course would be able to use the cleaned water to water greens and fairways. But the Air Force seemed a little miffed by the golf course gambit and said it would still have to go through a federal process, which Steller calls “annoying” when Warbird at least is trying to find an immediate solution.

They’ve had enough: South Tucsonans are demanding the ouster of the city's housing director, Irma Gonzalez, the Sentinel's Mia Kortright reports. Residents of public housing brought complaints about neglected properties to Gonzalez, but they say their concerns weren’t addressed. Meanwhile, one of the symbols of the poor state of housing in the city, the Old Spanish Trail Motel, is finally being demolished, Payton May reports for KOLD.

There’s something poetic about politicians running out of good TV advertising slots, unskippable YouTube ads and street corners for their political signs.

But while facing that deficit of eyeball space, Democrats have gotten creative. This week, they sent a billboard truck around Congressional District 6 to criticize Republican Congressman Juan Ciscomani’s voting record.

We haven’t spotted it in the wild yet. (Send us a pic if you do!) But we’re sure it’ll find us the next time we’re stuck in a construction zone on one of the many streets currently torn up for a road project.

Finally, some congressional gridlock we can see from our car.