Sign up for TPR Today, Texas Public Radio's newsletter that brings our top stories to your inbox each morning.
Voters across Bexar County will be asked to weigh in on a $987 million bond for the Alamo Colleges District during the May election.
It will be the community college system’s first bond election since 2017. If approved, the Alamo Colleges plans to use the bond for 20 different projects, including more than a dozen new and expanded programs.
“One of the unique things about our community is that San Antonio is growing,” Chancellor Mike Flores said in an interview with TPR. “[The] Alamo Colleges is growing at twice the rate of population growth within our community.”
“We need to be able to prepare for that growth, to prepare from going from 80,000 students now to what we expect would be 100,000 students in 2030 or could be up to 127,000 students,” he added.
In addition to a campus expansion at Northwest Vista College and investments in infrastructure for the entire system, much of the bond focuses on workforce development programs for what Flores calls “high-wage, high-demand” jobs in fields like technology, manufacturing and healthcare.
“We see the transformational impact that a credential has, but we also know that those facilities can be expensive and are very intensive and specific to that area. So, the bond will help us to meet those needs by building those unique facilities,” Flores said.
The bond also proposes building at four new locations: automotive and manufacturing programs at Brooks, technology and transportation programs at Port San Antonio, a nursing school at the Medical Center, and a new training center near Stone Oak.
Despite the nearly $1billion sticker price, Flores said the bond will not require a tax rate increase because of the growth in Bexar County.
“Because of the number of new houses that are built, the number of new businesses … because of our rate of growth, we can, if this passes, we could issue then those bonds with no property tax rate increase for Bexar County voters and homeowners,” Flores said.
The Alamo Colleges is by far the largest system of higher education in San Antonio. Its tax base includes all of Bexar County.
