The president of North Carolina’s community college system says a $3.1-billion bond referendum on the ballot this Election Day is necessary for the state’s future economic vitality.

“More and more people are looking for community colleges to improve their lives,” said Martin Lancaster, who stopped by Salisbury Tuesday during a tour of the state to promote passage of the bonds.

When the N.C. legislature allocated money in 1957 to start building the state’s first community colleges, North Carolina was beginning to expand beyond its agrarian roots following World War II and enter a manufacturing-based economy. Today, the state has suffered losses in textiles, furniture and other manufacturing areas — and seen high-tech industry take wing.

Many students at community colleges are not seeking degrees but short-term retraining to meet this shifting economy, Lancaster said. Others seek two-year degrees or transfer to universities to obtain four-year degrees.

“We are just being inundated with new students who, 25 years ago, would not have seen a need,” Lancaster said.

The state’s 59 community colleges and 16-campus university system anticipate 100,000 additional students this decade — an increase of about 30 percent, according to North Carolinians for Educational Opportunity, a group promoting the bonds. Rowan-Cabarrus Community College’s part-time and full-time enrollment is expected to swell from 21,000 per year to 40,000 in the same period.

Yet more and more, North Carolina’s public colleges are having to raise standards and turn down applicants because of a shortage of space, Lancaster said.

If voters approved the bond on Nov. 7, Rowan-Cabarrus could stand to get $11.1 million during the next five years. But the Rowan and Cabarrus county governments would have to put up millions more to receive that amount. Here’s how the plan would work:

• Rowan County taxpayers would have to spend $3.7 million to obtain $5.2 million in state funds. The money would pay for new construction on the north campus at Jake Alexander Boulevard and Interstate 85.
• Cabarrus County taxpayers would need to pay $3.5 million to get $4.4 million for new construction on the south campus at I-85 and N.C. 73.
• The bonds would provide $1.6 million for repairs and renovations on both campuses, free of any local obligations.

The referendum would provide $190 million for the nearby University of North Carolina at Charlotte, enabling it to build seven academic buildings and remove an enrollment cap imposed in recent years.

So far the issue has encountered little public opposition. The Board of Independent Colleges and Universities has endorsed them, as have other state and local organizations, including the Rowan County Chamber of Commerce.

Burt Brinson, chairman of the local chamber, said community colleges are essential to recruiting new and better-paying businesses because of the services they provide. “We look at it as an economic development tool,” said Brinson, city executive for Wachovia in Salisbury.

The conservative John Locke Foundation in Raleigh has said voters would be better served if community colleges sought approval of separate, local bonds — rather than lumping themselves together with the university system. The foundation said the bonds will likely lead to an income tax increase and possibly cause property tax rates to rise in many counties — depending on how much county boards of commissioners decide to match.

“It’s highly likely that there will be property tax increases if the bonds pass, in addition to income tax increases,” Hood has said.

State Treasurer Harlan Boyles has said the General Assembly would not to have raise income taxes to retire the bonds but could draw the money from other areas.

For Lancaster, the timing of the referendum is good because North Carolina has received a triple-A bond rating — the best possible — from the nation’s top three accrediting agencies. North Carolina would still spend far less of its annual budget — at most 3.2 percent during the bonds’ 25-year payoff period — than the average 7 percent that other states spend on debt repayment.

With the bonds, on a pay-as-you-go basis, “it would be very difficult to get the kind of coherent planning that the community colleges need,” Lancaster said. “We have the revenues to pay for the construction without raising taxes.

“ ... We take nothing for granted, and there are still a lot of misunderstandings” about the bond issue.

“We have a lot to do to educate the public,” he said.