To build or not to build: the May 10 question

On May 10, voters in the two-thirds of the Round Rock Independent School District not already in the Austin Community College taxing district will decide whether to be annexed by the college.

Only one-third of RRISD is currently in-district because that part of RRISD is located in an Austin zip code. If the un-annexed residents vote 'yes', ACC is ready to proceed with the building of a new campus in Round Rock.

Dean Jones, senior communications coordinator for ACC, said that the potential Round Rock campus is all a part of ACC's Master Plan: looking forward and keeping up with the growth of an eight-county service area. Bastrop and Fredericksburg are two areas the board will be looking at in the future, but, as the fastest growing part of the service area, Round Rock is the immediate focus of their plans.

Current Round Rock residents who attend ACC can either attend the Round Rock Higher Education Center on University Boulevard in Round Rock or campuses in Austin. The students who live outside the annexed area are paying out-of-district tuition even if they attend RRHEC, which is largely geared toward students who are planning to transfer to Texas State or other four-year colleges. The RRHEC is housed in a Texas State facility, and, according to officials, they are running out of room for ACC classes. An ACC campus would ease this problem.

A new campus would offer fully-encompassing degree programs, so that a student could take all of their courses at the one campus. However, there are some specialties, such as the Culinary Program at the Eastview Campus or the Drama Program at the Rio Grande Campus, that a student would still have to commute to, but they would not pay out-of-district tuition if the annexation passes.

In the case of the Round Rock campus, there would be an emphasis on medical training because of the many hospitals and medical centers in the area. The new Seton hospital is nearby, joined by Scott & White's University Medical Campus hospital, the planned campus of Texas A&M University's medical school and Texas State University's Round Rock campus.

ACC has acquired 60 acres for the campus, and Jones said that an architect has designed what the campus would look like. If, however, the vote doesn't pass on May 10, ACC would hold on to the land but not go through with building the campus. If the community votes yes, Jones says the school will be ready.

The Board of Trustees called for the election for annexation (as supported by a petition) and has held two question-and-answer sessions in the last couple of weeks, at the Northridge Campus and at the RRHEC, to inform students and faculty about the proposed annexation. But it is not ACC's place to get people to vote. That has been up to an independent group, ACCtion4Education.

According to Glen Colby, co-chair of ACCtion4Education, they are a specific-purpose political action committee which formed in July of last year, with a pre-defined goal of getting the annexation passed. He said that so many people signed the petition last November to support the vote for annexation that they feel it is enough to carry the initiative.

Colby's organization has been visiting groups such as the Chamber of Commerce and Round Rock West, which had a neighborhood forum recently. He said they have met with a little resistance from a relatively small minority of people who do not have a family member who is attending or would attend ACC, so perhaps do not want to pay the taxes in support of ACC.

Colby said that some people see a reasonably-priced education as a handout and do not realize the benefits if it does not directly affect them. In fact, he said, it benefits the community by allowing those educated to increase their ability to pay taxes. He believes many of those with objections have been converted.

One of ACCtion4Education's reasons for annexation is that senior citizens get an $80,000 tax exemption, in addition to an exemption to all homeowners, based on the worth of their home.

Another of ACCtion4Education's arguments for annexation is that Round Rock high school students can get dual credit for some classes. The proposed campus would be a focal point where high school students could take dual-credit classes for free, accumulating up to a semester and a half worth of college credit by the time they graduate from high school.

The group also wants to get more medical personnel trained for Round Rock. If the annexation initiative passes, they will not have to wait long to see the results. Colby said that if it passes, the election will be certified at the next meeting of the ACC Board of Directors, and three weeks later, the new tuition rates will be in effect for the Summer 2008 semester.