When Andrew Martini was younger and living in California, his neighbor’s garage started to burn down. The fire department was called and within minutes, firefighters were on the scene putting out the fire.
“It was just a really great experience being able to see that and get the help that we needed in the moment and especially as efficiently as it was,” Martini said. “Since then, I’ve always kind of wanted to help people and be able to do that because it was really interesting for me.”
Martini is now in his second week of getting his certification through Pima Community College’s EMT program with the goal of becoming a structural or wildfire firefighter. So far, he says he’s learned a lot from the classes he’s taken, especially since it’s so hands-on.
“It’s been extremely helpful having the dummies and being able to actually test it on something physically there,” he said. “It’s very helpful with actually developing the connection of like, ‘OK, this is how you properly do it’ and get the opportunity to actually walk through it yourself slowly to better understand the topic and get more involved in the process.”
The EMT certification program could benefit from the passing of Proposition 430, a general obligation bond that would provide $250 million to modernize aging Pima Community College facilities and expand workforce training for high-demand, high-wage careers. Early ballots go out Oct. 7 for the general election on Nov. 3
“We’re at a place now where we wouldn’t be asking if the college didn’t really need it to move forward,” Pima Community College Governing Board Member Greg Taylor said. “We’re not asking just because these things are nice to have moving forward. We’re in a position where this is a need to have. If we do not have this additional funding to make up for the substantial losses that we’re seeing from the state and federal government, the college will not be able to continue in the way that it has continued, and we’ll be looking at a dramatically reduced ability for the college to respond to community needs.”
Project Amount New Center of Excellence for First Responders & Public Safety $39,800,000 New campus police headquarters at the downtown campus $29,000,000 Renovate student support and success centers $27,300,000 Modernize and expand academic spaces (Cyber/IT, Arts, STEM, Education) $57,000,000 Update and improve existing infrastructure (Facilities and IT) $58,900,000 Refinance revenue bonds to reduce future interest payments $38,000,000 Total Estimated Cost $250,000,000
What the bond would do
If the bond passes, deferred maintenance and remediation would be the first things addressed, said David Bea, executive vice chancellor for finance and administration, at an information session hosted by Pima Foundation, one of five the foundation is holding to explain the proposition to voters.
About a dozen people attended the session where Chancellor Jeffrey Nasse showed a picture of a pipe clogged up with residue as just one example of the college’s needs.
“It’s been 30 years since we’ve been out for a bond, a long time without that type of upgrade,” Nasse said, adding that the college needed to upgrade everything from IT and HVAC to electrical systems and more. “Not only is it really old and not adequate for supporting our mission, but things are more expensive, so even trying to put things together as inflation increases is a challenge for the college.”
The bond would also save the college an estimated $4 million from refinancing existing debt, Nasse said. Other projects include $29 million for building police headquarters at the downtown campus, $27.3 million for renovating student support and success centers and $57 million for modernizing and expanding academic spaces.
The projects would be phased in, with some still needing architectural design and program review. Bea estimated the first new buildings would open in three to five years, with many projects in the later stages of construction by around year five.
Why now?
The $250 million bond was calculated using a formula the state used for capital and operational funds allocated to community colleges. According to Pima’s General Counsel Jeff Silvyn, Pima would have received about $221 million without state funding cuts.
“The bond we’re asking for is just a little bit above that. So it pretty much would make up for what the college did not receive from state funding,” Silvyn said. For a $250,000 house, the cost to a Pima County resident would be about $2.60 a month, around $31 a year, he added.
It’s been 30 years since Pima asked voters to authorize a bond, and Pima officials say a mix of things are contributing to the need, like an increase in demand, continuous cuts from the state and the loss of federal grants.
Bea said that while Pima used to get about $23 million a year in state funding for operations, maintenance and capital, they now get $1.5 million from the state annually to support Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math and Workforce programs.
The first cuts were due to the 2008 recession, when the legislature cut about $12 million. Then again in 2016, state legislators eliminated the annual operating funding allocation entirely for the two largest community college districts: Pima and Maricopa, according to Silvyn.
At the federal level, the college has lost grants that had been renewed for 30 years.
The college says it has looked for ways to cut costs: leasing facilities around Pima County, moving programs and staff and addressing energy and water consumption by upgrading utilities and infrastructure.
“We had hoped to rely on maybe state funding or federal funding to be able to do those sorts of things, but that is gone and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be coming back anytime soon,” Taylor said. “So it leaves us the question of: will Pima County voters decide that the college is something we want to invest in ourselves?”
If the bond doesn’t pass, the college will have to scale back the projects and find other ways to finance them, such as increasing the primary property tax or tuition, both of which are at the discretion of the PCC Governing Board.
This year the college raised tuition $2.50 per credit in lower division courses and added a $10 per credit fee to high school students in their dual-enrollment courses.
The board also approved a 2% property tax hike for Pima County residents in 2026-2027, the highest increase state law allows. The college is allowed to raise primary property taxes by 2% every year, with unused amounts “banked” for future years, Kree wrote in an email.
“For example, if the College raised property taxes by 1% this year, the Board could raise them by up to 3% the following year,” he said. “Among Arizona’s 10 community college districts, PCC has the fourth-lowest tax rate and would remain the fourth-lowest if the bond passes.”
Opposition
There is no organized opposition to the proposition, other than one argument against it in the PCC voter informational pamphlet that hit voters’ mailboxes in late September.
In it, Carlos Mejorado Carrillo, a PCC alum and Pima County resident said he opposes the bond largely because he feels the college has not been transparent enough with the community. He said PCC has not yet published a clear “promise-to-outcome accounting showing how prior investments improved completion, employment, wages, access and equity,” referring to Proposition 481. The proposition, passed in 2020 by voters with 70% approval, increased the college’s flexibility to spend tax revenue without affecting taxpayers.
General Counsel Silvyn said there are three different mechanisms to ensure the bond is used as promised: the governing board who is elected by voters, a finance and audit committee elected by the board and made up of 8 to 12 community members with relevant experience in the field, and the annual audit done by the state.
Center of Excellence for First Responders and Public Safety
When EMT student Martini was researching where to continue his education, he went on ride-alongs with several fire departments and spoke to many firefighters about where he should go. They told him to go to Pima, he said.
While he didn’t previously know about the bond, he said he’s now “100% going to vote for it.”
“People are going to be getting better training, they’re going to be using better materials, they’re going to have better equipment, they’re going to be more knowledgeable on how to save people and help people when they need it,” he said. “The most important part is that people are going in with that confidence level. That they know that they can take care of people who need the help.”
Many of Tucson’s public safety officers have been trained at Pima, according to Todd Canale, Pima’s dean of public safety, through a reciprocal agreement the college has with multiple Tucson and Pima County first responder agencies. The college also has partnerships with community agencies, like AMR’s Earn While You Learn program, where students are paid to complete a six-week course to get their EMT certification.
That program, as well as the college’s paramedic program — which Canale called a “benchmark program throughout the nation” — are located at a 60-year-old former elementary school on 29th Street, where they’ve been since 2012. Last year, a sewage pipe broke, further highlighting for Canale the need to move the program to the east campus.
The bond provides $39.8 million for the creation of a Center of Excellence for First Responders and Public Safety. It would bring together all public safety disciplines under one roof and make space for things like evidence rooms, simulation pods — and possibly a mock courtroom — for students to get real life experience.
“Think about how much better off students would be if they could learn and train in an environment that looks similar and has the same kind of equipment they would use when they’re actually on the job? That’s the idea,” Canale said. “So when they walk out of Pima College and go into that work environment, they will be comfortable, they will be prepared.”
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