THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 26, 1994 TAG: 9408250153
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VANEE VINES, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
The president of Tidewater Community College wants the city to invest several hundred thousand dollars a year in the Portsmouth campus to make it more attractive to students across Hampton Roads.
TCC President Larry L. Whitworth urged the City Council on Tuesday to begin setting aside at least $250,000 annually for the campus for at least the next decade.
The money would pay for improvements such as a new parking lot, security lights and landscaping work, he said. It also would free up other funds that could instead be used for college scholarships, recruiting, the upgrading of programs and special TCC projects throughout the city, he said.
Portsmouth currently earmarks $6,000 a year for TCC's 12-member Board of Trustees, as do Chesapeake, Virginia Beach and Norfolk. Norfolk's TCC campus will open in 1996.
But Whitworth, TCC president for the past three years, said the college needs a lot more local money to make the campuses enticing.
Altogether, he'll ask Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Portsmouth to contribute a total of $2.5 million annually. He'll ask Norfolk for $1 million annually once that city's campus is completed.
He hopes a spruced-up Portsmouth campus would be a stronger magnet to lure area students who might otherwise seek higher education outside the region.
Whitworth said the other municipalities with TCC campuses had paid for basic site-improvement work themselves. If Portsmouth can't find the money, he said the college - which has secured a $1.74 million loan for various TCC-Portsmouth projects, including the parking lot - would somehow swallow the costs.
But he strongly encouraged the city to come up with the money as a ``payback'' for a nicer facility.
``Basically, we've borrowed money to do what should have been done 25 years ago,'' he said in an interview Wednesday. ``What I'm suggesting is that we know over the next five years, Portsmouth will lose about $41 million out of its economy because of students going someplace else. We need to create first-class college campuses to attract students to stay here.''
Council members seemed intrigued by the prospect of larger TCC-Portsmouth enrollments bringing additional dollars to the city. However, they opted only to consider Whitworth's request during discussions of the 1995-1996 budget.
``We may think it's a wonderful idea, and we may not,'' Mayor Gloria O. Webb said after his presentation. ``We really don't know that much about it.''
Webb, along with Vice Mayor Johnny M. Clemons and council member Bernard Griffin, urged Whitworth and school district officials to look for more ways TCC-Portsmouth and the district can work together.
Superintendent Richard D. Trumble said he supports that idea. But any additional city money for education should be spent on elementary and secondary school students, Trumble said later.
By improving the Portsmouth campus, which actually is located in Suffolk, Whitworth predicts that Portsmouth could reap $8.3 million from a $1.5 investment by the year 2000.
The extra money, he said, would come from an anticipated 830 rise in enrollment after improvements were made. Whitworth, however, stopped short of making financial guarantees.
About 44 percent of all local residents enrolled in college attend TCC-Portsmouth, officials said.
The $250,000 annual subsidy is roughly 1 percent of the total amount Portsmouth now spends on public schools. It's nearly 3 percent of TCC-Portsmouth's current budget of $9.5 million.
Whitworth, apparently trying to ward off a cash crunch, also is seeking 1 percent of the Chesapeake and Virginia Beach K-12 education budgets for campus projects in those cities. He plans to ask for the same percentage from Norfolk when that city's campus opens.
On Tuesday, Chesapeake approved about $768,000 annually for the TCC campus located there. That City Council also required TCC to provide Chesapeake with copies of expense invoices.
Compared with other South Hampton Roads cities, Portsmouth is the least able to pay for increasingly pressing public school needs. The school district's children, Trumble said, must come first.
``Kids can't vote. Somebody has to be an advocate for them,'' he said. ``Historically, during tough times, nations have basically told adults to suck it up and placed an emphasis on the children.''
The local school district, which didn't get any additional money from the city this fiscal year, postponed thousands of dollars in maintenance needs, the purchase of new math books and construction of technology labs in the high schools. The administration also has eliminated dozens of jobs through attrition or reduction-in-force measures.
Whitworth said extra money for TCC-Portsmouth would have a positive effect on local children whose parents attend the college.
``If you don't take care of the parents, the children are going to get lost in the shuffle, anyway,'' he said after his presentation. by CNB