A 'HANCOCK' ON TAXPAYERS: COLLEGE SEEKS $290M FOR 'UPGRADES'

KSBY News reported this week that Allan Hancock College is generously offering voters the chance to fork over $290 million in a bond measure come November. The college claims this mountain of cash is for 'repairs, upgrades, and modernization'—which, in bureaucratic speak, usually means new executive lounges, art installations resembling discarded plumbing, and perhaps a 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' studies wing nobody asked for. Apparently, the existing structures are so dilapidated that learning can only occur in gleaming, high-tech, and exorbitantly priced new buildings.

One has to wonder if the 'modernization' includes updating the college's approach to fiscal responsibility. While the college touts this as a necessary investment for student success, the real story, as always, is the endless appetite of public institutions for more taxpayer dollars. It's never enough. The ink barely dries on one bond measure before another, grander one is being drawn up, all under the guise of improving educational outcomes. Perhaps the 'repairs' should start with the college's budgeting department.

What KSBY didn't dig into is precisely which well-connected construction firms are already circling this $290 million like vultures, sharpening their pencils for those sweet, sweet government contracts. Guaranteed, there are campaign donations already quietly greasing the wheels for certain local officials who will dutifully endorse this collegiate largesse from the public purse. Voters should consider whether this is truly about education or simply another public works project disguised as academic progress. Our bet is on the latter, with a nice kickback for the usual suspects. But don't worry, they'll call it 'progress.'