THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 2, 1994 TAG: 9410020036
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Tidewater Community College, looking to make up for cuts in state aid, is pleading for help from a source it has barely tapped: local city governments.
TCC President Larry L. Whitworth is asking most South Hampton Roads city councils to give the community college the equivalent of 1 percent of the funding they dole out to public schools. But he is not asking them to cut their K-to-12 budgets.
``What we're looking for,'' he said, ``is each of the cities whose names are on the door to take pride in the institutions they have and to maximize the opportunities there. For a few extra dollars, we can transform these basic two-year institutions into what I believe will be first-class, outstanding institutions.''
So far, Whitworth has met with mixed results. Chesapeake has approved $760,000 for the college, but Portsmouth is still mulling his request for $250,000.
He intends to make formal requests later this year to Virginia Beach, which would be the biggest contributor at $1.4 million, and Suffolk, at $100,000. Whitworth said he would not ask Norfolk for any more money until TCC's Norfolk campus opens in 1996. TCC has three campuses - in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and at the Suffolk-Portsmouth border.
TCC now gets $6,000 each from four cities: Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach. Neither Norfolk State nor Old Dominion University receives funding from local municipalities, university officials said.
Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf said she was open to the request, but already had reservations. ``I am willing to look at it,'' she said, ``but I would be very cautious to committing to it. I do not feel that the duties that have fallen to the state to support should now be the burden of local governments.
``Historically, the city provides K-to-12 education, garbage collection, police protection. . . . This would be a whole new role for us.''
But Whitworth said it's not so unusual elsewhere in the country. In Pennsylvania, where he used to work, about one-third of a community college's budget came from local revenue, as opposed to less than 1 percent here.
``Everybody keeps saying, `Go back to the state,' '' he said. ``But it's not the state's responsibility to meet all the needs. The community has the responsibility to meet some of its needs. The community college is, by definition, a community-based institution.''
Joy Graham, assistant chancellor of the state community college system, said some Virginia community colleges get significant subsidies from municipalities, but that hasn't been the case in Hampton Roads.
TCC, like other state-supported colleges, has faced a 20 percent cut in state funding since 1990.
He said cities would get their money back by beefing up the community college: ``Every student that leaves one of the cities to go away to school because there isn't enough basic technology or we don't have the right programs takes away a minimum of $10,000.'' by CNB