February 17, 2004

The Honorable Charlie Barkley
Maryland House of Delegates
Lowe House Office Building
84 College Avenue
Annapolis, MD 21401

Dear Delegate Barkley:

I am pleased to report that the Health Sciences Center at Montgomery College’s Takoma Park Campus is open for business! Our students are so excited to finally have the opportunity to learn in state of the art classrooms and laboratories. You will recall some of our health science students took classes in converted dance studios and had to struggle to get access to proper lab equipment. Well, thanks to you those days are gone. And, of course, now Montgomery College can help address the State’s nursing shortage like never before! Your support of the Takoma Park Campus expansion made all this possible.

The Health Sciences Center, as you know, is just the first of the three new buildings needed at the Takoma Park Campus. I am pleased to say that the next phases of the expansion are funded in the Governor’s capital budget. Specifically, the budget includes design funds for the Cultural Arts Center. The Center includes a 500 seat auditorium, which is particularly noteworthy since Takoma Park is the only community college campus in the State without an auditorium. Also, the budget includes funds for the construction of the Student Services Center. This facility will bring services like registration and financial aid into one central location. These functions currently are spread across the campus, located in buildings designed to serve a substantially smaller student population. The new Student Center also will house the cafeteria, security offices and an open computer lab. And, finally, the pedestrian bridge you added to the capital budget two years ago is now under construction and will link directly to this building. Your continued support of the expansion of this campus is vital and greatly appreciated.

Additionally, we must call upon you to protect the State aid in the Governor’s operating budget for community colleges. The Governor used the Cade formula to calculate the funding for community colleges. This is good news. It stems the tide of losses in State aid that occurred over the last several years. Nonetheless, despite having the third largest growth in the number of Full-time Equivalent Students (FTES) among Cade funded colleges, Montgomery College will experience very little increase in its State funding. So, we ask you to consider restoring the community college funding formula, the Cade formula, to its originally mandated 25% of the University System of Maryland funding per FTES, should revenues become available to do so. Senator Kramer and Delegate Madaleno will sponsor bills to implement this request. I would remind you that my colleagues and I on the Board of Trustees voted to support a resolution calling on the General Assembly to find the necessary solutions to provide revenue enhancements to protect vital programs like community colleges. A similar resolution was adopted by the Maryland Association of Community Colleges’ Board of Directors last year.

Delegate Sheila Hixson will introduce her bill again this session to provide local tuition rates for certain immigrant students. You will recall the General Assembly adopted this bill last session. Unfortunately, the Governor vetoed the bill. The Board of Trustees strongly supports this legislation. We believe as an open access institution we must give all our residents an opportunity to attend Montgomery College and other public institution of higher education.

Finally, I ask you to support Delegate Heller’s bills to preserve the Mountain Maryland Grant to support Allegany and Garrett Colleges, and to establish a grant fund to help community colleges serve students with documented disabilities.

As always, the Board of Trustees at Montgomery College knows that we can count on your support. We look forward to our continued work together to support our community’s college.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Gene W. Counihan
Chair, Board of Trustees