College trustees controlled by county officials

If the new leadership at the Montgomery County Community College’s Board of Trustees won’t defend the college and its students, I will. Just over two months ago, I as board chairman, along with Regina Lowrie as treasurer, resigned from the college’s board of trustees out of concern that unceremonious removal of four dedicated trustees by the commissioners was designed to take over leadership at the community college to undermine the college’s independence. Well, the chickens have now come home to roost.

The 2017 property tax bills have been mailed and I have personally been asked by friends about this “new” MCCC tax. It must be said that the county messaging of this tax has been manipulated to appear as if the college now costs the taxpayers $22 million dollars in new taxes. While I and others have come to the defense of the college, the board of trustees remains conspicuously silent. I suggest that this very act of silence confirms that the board of trustee leadership is controlled by the commissioners. Right now they are silent about taxes. With nearly a $90 million budget, will their silence extend to patronage hiring of faculty and administrators, construction bidding, and so many other things?

In 2011 nearly $5.25 million was stripped from the college budget by the commissioners who decided to slash the operating budget from $18 million to just under $13 million. In fact, from 2012 through the present, the prison has received more than a 30 percent increase in funding while the college has seen its funding decrease more than 28 percent. After fighting for more than four years to have these funds restored, in 2016 the board of trustees requested that a direct millage be assigned to the college from the county budget which would prevent cutting of the college’s budget in order to meet the commissioners’ political agenda.

The county held hearings last year to provide a dedicated millage to the college. Current commissioners’ Chairwoman Val Arkoosh submitted a county budget which kept the college’s existing funding of more than $18 million and created a new dedicated tax of more than $22 million for MCCC. Rather than simply assign a portion of the county’s millage to the community college, the commissioners’ budget kept the college’s existing funding. In doing so, when a taxpayer looks at their new tax bill they see a MCCC tax. As such, the community college takes the political brunt of this tax increase when nearly 90 percent of the new tax revenue is staying with the commissioners.

MCCC is the best investment the county taxpayers have been making since 1963. Unfortunately, the county’s political takeover of the college’s board leadership has left the college without a voice. Instead, we now have leadership at the community college which fears telling the truth.

— Michael J. D’aniello, Esq. Norristown