Voters Pass College of DuPage Bond Referendum

The College of DuPage bond referendum for Community College District 502 narrowly passed Tuesday night after getting nearly 55 percent of the vote. The college is now allowed to sell $168 million in bonds to pay for repairs to aging buildings, construction of a new multi-tiered parking structure and continuing phase two of construction of a new Homeland Security Center.

Much of the money will be used for projects at the McAninch Arts Center, the Physical Education Building and the Student Resource Center.

College officials said Tuesday they expected the referendum to pass.

"We believe that the referendum has a very good chance of passing," said Joe Moore, associate vice president of external relations for College of DuPage. "COD has a very good brand in the district, a lot of good feelings."

Moore said the college wouldn't use all the bonding authority right away, but as needed for projects.

College officials said they were taking advantage of historically low interest rates and billed the referendum as a no-tax rate increase for the district.

"We don't believe you could find a better opportunity," Moore said of the college taking advantage of low interest rates.

Residents will not see an increase in their property taxes; they just won't see them decrease as other debt is retired. Proposition 502 will keep tax rates the same as they were after the district's last bond referendum in 2002.

In 2002, voters approved a referendum to allow the district to issued bonds up to $138 million. However, due to refinancing of some of that debt, the district was able to retire some debt earlier than previously thought, saving taxpayers $2.14 million.

According to Moore, residents in Community College District 502 pay about 4 percent of their total property tax bill to the district. Seventy-five percent of that goes to operations, and the other quarter goes to debt service.

"Speaking in rough numbers, people will see that we are talking about a very small amount," Moore said of the impact on resident's property taxes.

The resulting construction projects are expected to create about 3,400 new construction jobs, either at the college or as a direct result of the college's construction. College of DuPage officials came to that conclusion after looking at the number of jobs created after the last referendum, which created about 3,600 new construction jobs from the college's projects.