Bond puts college campus in Maricopa

The Central Arizona Community College’s governing board recently passed a measure to put a nearly $99 million bond initiative on the November ballot.

The bond would call for the creation of two new campuses, one in Maricopa and the other in the San Tan/Johnson Ranch area, in addition to a series of improvements and upgrades to existing campuses.

Currently there is a small satellite campus in Maricopa that houses four classrooms.

“The total size of the space we lease in Maricopa is about 2,600 square feet,” said Central Arizona College President Dennis Jenkins.

The new campus that this money would create in Maricopa would be 50,000 to 60,000 square feet, Jenkins added.

However, Jenkins said that he eventually sees the campus growing as large as the school’s main facility, which is between Casa Grande and Coolidge.

A bond is similar to loan in that it is an advance on money a person, or in this case a college, expects to collect. However, unlike a loan, the borrower doesn’t pay the money back to the lender; homeowners do because bonds are assessed on a county’s secondary property tax.

If passed, the CAC bond would raise the secondary property tax by 17 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, and the bond would be paid off in 25 years.

The college hasn’t had a public bond election since 1972.

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