Pflugerville organizations tout tuition rates, additional services as benefits to residents

A grass-roots movement to annex Pflugerville into Austin Community College's taxing district is hoping to pick up steam and support throughout the city.

The Pflugerville Pfriends 4 ACC and members of other groups such as Help Pflugerville Join ACC have started education campaigns to inform residents about the advantages of the city joining the district and adding a 9.51 cent tax to its current tax obligation.

"Having a college campus in our city, I mean that's a huge benefit, and I think there are other peripheral benefits that come with that," Pfriends President and Treasurer Justin LeBlanc said. "Economically and financially, it makes sense."

LeBlanc attended ACC for the first two years of his undergraduate degree before moving to Pflugerville and transferring to Texas State University Round Rock campus. When he attempted to enroll in an ACC Spanish class to complete his degree, he was shocked at the additional tuition costs he encountered.

"Because of my address, I found out after the fact that I was now out-of-district, and my cost for those courses was exorbitant," he said.

How students are affected

Currently, Pflugerville is not part of ACC's taxing district, which helps fund the college's operating expenses. ACC collects taxes in cities neighboring Pflugerville, such as Cedar Park and Round Rock, and in parts of Austin that overlap with Pflugerville ISD.

Being part of the taxing district allows resident students to pay lower tuition costs. According to ACC's website, full-time, out-of-district students pay, on average, $7,200 in tuition and fees per academic year. Comparatively, in-district students pay an average of $2,340 per academic year, a difference of nearly $5,000.

"If you are out-of-district, you pay our tuition cost, but there's also an out-of-district fee," said Alexis Patterson Hanes, ACC's senior public information coordinator. "So if you are in-district ... your overall cost for your education is lower."

Being in the taxing district also allows ACC to offer additional classes, programs and advising services to an area, Hanes said.

"So if a community is not part of the taxing district, there's not that revenue stream that would allow us to serve them in that way," she said.

Current ACC services in the city

ACC currently has a satellite center at Hendrickson High School that offers classes only. The college has similar centers in Bastrop County, Elgin, Fredericksburg, Georgetown, Hays County, Leander, Lockhart, Manor and San Marcos. The Hendrickson center hosts a few evening classes per semester, but it does not offer advising or other services.

"What people have to do is go through [the] Northridge [campus] or Round Rock [campus] for advising," Hendrickson Transition Counselor Terry Sheneman said.

Pflugerville ISD Superintendent Charles Dupre said the district would not be involved in the annexation initiative.

"PISD partners with ACC in numerous ways to offer current students expanded educational opportunities, but the decision to make Pflugerville part of ACC's taxing district is a community-driven choice, and the school district is a neutral third party to that decision," Dupre said.

LeBlanc said he wants to see a separate, physical campus built in the city.

"We would want a significant increase in footprint and services in Pflugerville," he said. "A campus is the language that I'm going for."

However, no recent talks have been made with the city about building a campus, Pflugerville Mayor Jeff Coleman said.

"From a city standpoint, there have been no official discussions whatsoever regarding ACC coming into our area," Coleman said. "One of the claims [Pflugerville Pfriends 4 ACC is] making is that ACC said they're going to build a major campus in Pflugerville. ACC has never told the City of Pflugerville that."

Mayor Pro Tem Victor Gonzales met with ACC officials in 2011 to discuss annexation but had to shelve the efforts in order to campaign for re-election.

While he said he has no current involvement with annexation proposals, he would support the move on the condition that ACC agreed to build a campus within the boundaries of Pflugerville ISD.

"For a community to be taxed that much, I think they need to have a facility."

Gonzales also said bringing a stronger ACC presence to the city would be a boon to local education and businesses.

"It really is ... an investment in the community, it's an investment in our young people, it's an investment in keeping education locally, where students have an option to get a higher education," Gonzales said. "[And] if you have students coming into Pflugerville, they're going to be bringing their money to spend."

How annexation works

ACC requires a petition of 3,000 signatures before annexation can be put to a city's vote. According to state statute, an annexation election can be called without a petition if at least 15 percent of high school graduates in an area to be annexed enroll in a community college during a period of five years, but ACC has never called an annexation without a petition. Both Hanes and LeBlanc said they believe the community should show its support for the taxing district before anything is placed on a ballot.

"Preliminary figures show this [exception] may be the case for Pflugerville, but that's not something that the college has confirmed or further explored," Hanes said. "We really value the petition process, because ... the push for the annexation election would come from the community that would be impacted, rather than what the college is calling [for]."

The city has considered annexation before, but efforts did not progress because ACC said it would not build a campus in the city, Coleman said.

"At that point, the business community backed off of it because they were not comfortable supporting [annexation] if ACC was not going to build a campus," he said.

The voters of Round Rock approved annexation into the taxing district in May 2008. Like Pflugerville, the effort was started by smaller groups of residents and city leaders, according to an ACC news release. Factors contributing to the decision to annex included the construction of an ACC campus, expanded course offerings, and community and economic benefits, the news release said.

Currently, the City of Pflugerville is not involved in any efforts toward annexation. Coleman said he has not had any discussions with council members on backing the initiative and that it has not been an important council issue.

"The Pflugerville City Council, since 2004, has been on a mission to reduce taxes, not increase taxes, and this is unquestionably a tax increase," Coleman said. "So it is not something that any of us have put on our priority list."

Opposition

Both LeBlanc and Coleman say they have heard negative feedback about the annexation. Comments on the Pfriends' Facebook page have raised concerns about paying additional taxes on top of current residential taxes.

"I have [about 50 percent] saying 'Absolutely not, I've paid as much [in] taxes as I want to pay,'" Coleman said. "The negative is that the taxpayer would pick up an additional ... tax, whether they were ever going to benefit from it or not," Coleman said. "The majority of the population ... would never get any personal benefit from being in the taxing district."

Possible city benefits

LeBlanc, however, said the upfront tax could lead to lower property taxes in the future, contingent on whether ACC builds a campus in the city.

"How else are you going to get people to stay here, shop here during the day and support these local businesses unless you bring something that's going to act as an economic epicenter?" LeBlanc said. "And this way, the city can get additional commercial property tax revenue and sales tax revenue."

Coleman also recognizes there are potential benefits of having a physical campus in Pflugerville.

"The benefit would be our residents being closer and people from outside our area coming to this campus, but that's an ACC decision," Coleman said. "But they have most definitely not given an official word to the City of Pflugerville saying [that] if the city votes itself into the district, we're going to build a campus."

Hanes confirmed that no talks have yet been initiated with the City of Pflugerville on the annexation or building a campus.

"It's our role to provide information about the [annexation] process and what our programs and services are, and the tax implications of joining the district. We are beginning to do that with people," Hanes said. "But that's kind of the extent of where those discussions are."

The two grass-roots organizations have started petitions online to garner the 3,000 needed signatures to bring annexation to a vote. As of Feb. 1, the two groups had collected 308 combined signatures. The petitions can be accessed at www.change.org.

After the signatures are verified by ACC and informational public hearings are held, the college's board of trustees can order an election as part of regular May or November voting. The election must be called at least 62 days before a May election or 70 days before a November election.

LeBlanc said he believes that unlike previous attempts, the current initiative will gather the support it needs and succeed in bringing Pflugerville into ACC's tax base.

"We have the right people behind it, helping articulate the message," he said.