The Pensacola Promise?
You’ve probable heard about Pensacola City Councilwoman Maren DeWeese’s suggestion that the City of Pensacola provide a paid college education for kids who reside in the City limits. If you haven’t, check out her blog post where she laid out her plan. It’s inspired by the Kalamazoo Promise, a program initiated by the Kalamazoo Public Schools in 2005.
Provided a dedicated funding source can be identified, Progressive Pensacola endorses the idea wholeheartedly. It’s the ultimate investment in our community, and a potential gamechanger when it comes to economic development.
More on the Kalamazoo Promise
The Kalamazoo Promise, unveiled in 2005, allows any graduate of Kalamazoo Public Schools to obtain a 100% paid scholarship to an university or community college in the State of Michigan. Students who didn’t always attend Kalazmazoo schools, but rather transferred in, are entitled to partial scholarships. The Kalamazoo Promise is funded entirely by a group of very generous anonymous donors, which differs from Councilwoman DeWeese’s proposal that the City fund this plan. Of course, if we could round up some very generous private donors, that would be great; but if we can’t, Progressive Pensacola feels that it’s a plan very worthy of City funding. Sure, it’s an elective expense; but when you consider the possible return on such an investment, we think it’s worthwhile.
Possible impact
We all know that the City of Pensacola has a declining population. Consider the impact that such a program could have on attracting people to live in our City. Consider its impact in selling border residents on annexation. Sure, their taxes will go up, but in return they’ll get better fire and police protection, in addition to our other excellent City services, and their children’s college education will be taken care of. If anyone has doubts, let’s look back at Kalamazoo; since the implementation of the Kalamazoo Promise, enrollment in Kalamazoo Public Schools has increased by nearly 1200, reversing years of decline.
The bigger picture is economic development. The Kalamazoo-based Upjohn Institute calls the Kalamazoo Promise “an unprecedented experiment in economic development.” It’s still too early to measure the economic impact of the Kalamazoo Promise, but there are some early indicators of progress. Real estate values have gone up. The goal is to attract and retain businesses by furnishing them an educated workforce. Jeff DeWeese, Councilwoman DeWeese’s husband, has written a little more about this at her blog. The other aspect is the extra cash that residents will have in the bank when they don’t have to set aside money for their kids’ college educations.
We applaud Councilwoman DeWeese for raising the issue. This is another example of the refreshing attitude of this new Council. Can you imagine Ms. DeWeese’s predecessor, Mike DeSorbo, bring something like this forward? No. He and other members of past Councils have been content to simply dump money into the Chamber of Commerce year after year and cross their fingers. The Chamber is a piece of the puzzle, and serves an important role, but it’s obviously not getting the economic development job done. It’s time to look at other options.
Links
For more on the Kalamazoo Promise, check out the following links:
- The Kalamazoo Promise: Frequently Asked Questions
- The Upjohn Institute: Research related to the Kalamazoo Promise
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Maren DeWees’s idea is to use the $3.3 million that the city will get by selling 5 acres of land on College Boulevard.
HERE’S AN EVEN BETTER IDEA!
Sell the city-owner Trillium property to the private sector, with the assurance that part of it will be used for a public park. Forget about the measly $3.3 million that the city will get for the airport property. The Trillium property has been estimated to be worth $18 million by the city’s own consultants. Think of all the scholarships that could be bought for $18 million.
And better yet, with the Trillium property in private ownership it will bring in property taxes, something that will not happen under the baseball stadium proposal. Therefore, the scholarship fund would be self-sustaining. What could be better?
By the way, the city is not really “selling” the property to the airport, since the airport is owned by the city. All that will occur is that the citizen’s money will be shifted from one department to another. And since the airport is a public entity, no property taxes will be paid into city coffers. Therefore, under Maren DeWeese’s plan, the scholarship fund will run out of money once the $3.3 million is gone. This is probably timed to occur about the same time that Jeff and Maren’s own children have gotten out of college!
Maren DeWeese, The Pensacola News Journal, and Rick Outzen are all backing this plan to give out scholarships to city residents. Wouldn’t it be marvelous if they all endorsed a plan that can really work?
And, as a bonus, the city residents will finally get the waterfront park that has been promised to them by the City Council for the past ten years!
Xochitl:
A couple of point… firstly you’re right, the money is really only being shifted from one department to another… however — money in the Airport fund can only be used for the Airport… so the $3.3M transfer from the Airport fund to the general fund will free up that money to be spent on general fund stuff.
Secondly, Ms. DeWeese has put forward an idea for continued funding… the City has a bond issue that will end in a few years and that will free up about $3M/year that we can use for other things.
Notice what we said up at the top, we endorse this idea IF a dedicated funding source can be identified.
Let’s say I live in within city limits for 30 years, paying 4.598 mills to the city every year on a house valued at $150,000. That’s $689.70 the city gets every year, or $20,691 over 30 years.
According to SallieMae, four years of tuition at University of West Florida is currently about $12,750. I’ve got two kids, so that’s a financial commitment of $25,500.
That means the city is already applying the entirety of my family’s property taxes to this program (with $0 going towards the city’s actual budget) and is STILL out of pocket almost $5,000.
Yes, my property will probably go up in value, but tuition costs will likely go up at a much faster rate. Those figures also assume I stay in the city the whole time — and that I only have two kids. Realistically, this program would attract families with a much higher tuition-to-taxes ratio.
I just don’t see how the numbers work. Like, at all. The greater the project’s success, the greater the city’s financial obligation. It’s kind of like saying we could attract more city residents if we gave everyone pensions.
Well, take into account not every taxpayer has kids. Also, the City government has a lot of other sources of income. But I agree, if it doesn’t make sense moneywise, then that’s that.
Yes. Well, this city government seems to always find a “dedicated funding source.” It’s called city taxes and “fees”. All the city council has to do is to reach into the pockets of its residents to find a “dedicated funding source.” At this very moment, our city council has somehow found an unending supply of $100,000 bills that it will spend EACH MONTH towards building a baseball stadium.
Think of how many children could be sent to college for $1.2 million each and every year.
Finding money doesn’t seem to be a problem for the Pensacola City Council. The problem seems to be where to place its priorities. What’s more important? Sending our kids to college, or building a baseball stadium?
The point that I am trying to make is that we should be building up the wealth of this area through commerce. Instead, we are just obtaining “things” by squeezing out what little wealth exists in this area.
Still in moderation? I had to do math and stuff for that comment!
Sorry! I can’t figure out what caused that one to get dinged for moderation… no curse words… I’m going to just disable moderation, though, I’ve basically eliminated blogspam with another method, so as long as commenters are civil I should be alright.
No prob, thanks!
Priorities for this town?
The town that admits being 10 years behind in road resurfacing?
The town that’s idea of incentives for business is to add more franchise fees to it’s overtaxed city property owners to give away.
The town with a 14 million pension deficit voting to give pensions to part time council members and suggests increasing taxes to cover the mismanagement
The town that has grand ideas like providing free fire service to county property owners while city property owners get little or no services for full county taxes paid by city residents
Another million for clay tennis courts at Roger Scott- considering the financial situation, that’s a priority?.
No wonder the population is exiting this place.