TSC CELEBRATES 95TH ANNIVERSARY; FETES FAB 4 WHO SAVED IT

 

By Juan Montoya

Since 1926 – 95 years ago – Texas Southmost College has been the first rung on the ladder for local students who wanted to learn a craft, or as the first step to go on to higher academics in other schools and universities.

Servicemen returning from active duty used the G.I. Bill to learn a trade, or go on to other schools to earn a degree.

Then after barely surviving the disastrous "partnership" with the UT System that lasted 21 years and ended in 2013, it has emerged as a free-standing, independent institution which has been accredited on its own and has returned to its mission to provide a quality education at an affordable price.

That disentanglement from the UT System was not easy. Under the control of former UTB-TSC president Julieta Garcia, the college was on the verge of being swallowed up – lock stock and barrel, including all its property and buildings minus the bond debt – and handed over to the UT System.

Numerous "leading" citizens, including the late IBC President Fred Rusteberg, the late renegade Oblate priest Armand Matthew, and prominent businessmen and UT alumni stormed the barricades and exerted enormous pressure on the TSC board to give up the community college the people had nurtured for so many years.

Confronting these forces stood four TSC trustees – Adela Garza, Rene Torres, Kiko Rendon, and Trey Mendez –  the Fab Four who remained steadfast to the college's mission statement.

"Texas Southmost College is a public institution of higher education that provides educational opportunities through excellence in teaching and learning, workforce development, cultural enrichment, community service, and regional and global collaboration."

These Fab Four withstood the slings and arrows – and sometimes personal and professional adversity – to defend the institution and nurture it back to what this community had in mind when they authorized its founding, to provide affordable instruction to the students in the district.

"I remember during the public hearings when we were considering the separation that people would get up and scream in my face that taxes would triple, and that tuition would go up if we separated," recalled Mendez, who along with Rendon, Garza and Torres eventually voted for the split. He predicted back in 2011, that the community college would recover from its subservience to Garcia and her UTB cadre.

(It is estimated that during the 21 years of the "partnership" TSC handed over annual $55 million transfers totaling near $1 billion to the UT System. This from the poorest community in the United States to the richest oil-and-gas funded university system in the country.)

"We will have a balanced budget, won't raise property taxes and we're on our way to lower tuition for students in the college district," he said. "Now an added benefit of the separation is that the UT system has been forced to bring down resources to South Texas instead of having local taxpayers subsidize it."

His prophecies came true.

The Texas Southmost College Board of Trustees unanimously voted to lower the 2021 tax rate by 4.7 percent for property owners in the TSC taxing district during their regular meeting on Aug. 26.

“The TSC Board is committed to being responsible financial stewards of taxpayers’ dollars,” said TSC Board Chair Ruben Herrera. 

“We have lowered tuition by 40 percent since 2013, making college more affordable for families; we are the only institution of higher education in the Rio Grande Valley that did not lay off or furlough a single employee during the pandemic; and we are now able to also lower the tax rate, providing savings for our taxpayers.”

The new tax rate for 2021 is set at $0.154636 per $100,000 of valuation for property owners in the Texas Southmost College District. For example, the rate lowers property taxes for owners of a $100,000 home from $162.41 to $154.64 per year.

Some considered Julieta Garcia the end-all administrator and a shining example of Hispanic women leaders. 

But this is the same woman who was proposing that the district hand over all of its $200 million in assets (including real estate, buildings, bank deposits and any other pawnable resources) to the UT system and that the district be dissolved with her in complete charge of the surviving "partnership."

About the only thing that the district taxpayer would keep would be a $60 million bond debt that would grow to some $120 million with interest to be paid over a 20 year period. Only then would the UT system allow the district to "dissolve."

At Saturday's 95th Anniversary celebration, the Fab Four will be recognized and honored for their display of courage and resilience in the face of derision and personal affront.

(Fr. Matthew personally led a protest to the doors of the Mendez law firm when it was on Elizabeth Street and promised to destroy Trey "personally and professionally.")

It is also a little known fact that the minions of Julieta Garcia and her UT System minions had their eye on taking over the TSC Foundation that awards scholarship to deserving students. They were eyeing the $12 million it had in its coffers and wanted TSC to hand it over to them.

It was not to be. TSC fought them and kept it. Since 2019, the board of directors of the Foundation have awarded more than $250,000 per semester for deserving students.   

On October 2021, the Foundation board transferred over $1 million to the TSC board to open its scholarship pool even wider and make vocational students (welders, for example) eligible for scholarship to help them with their tuition and fees. These workforce scholarships will be available now.

"For too many years these students who were trying to get their certification in the construction, welding, auto mechanics, air conditioning and other crafts did not qualify for scholarship help due to the restrictive polices of the original foundation guidelines," said TSC board President Herrera. "That has changed thanks to the donation by the foundation. Now they will be eligible for assistance too."

Admission is free to the pubic for all 95th Anniversary events. Go celebrate your community college. If not for the courage of our board, it might not exist today. Sting them Scorps!