Category: Campus News

Written by Rhiana Bilderaya

An amendment is on the ballot this year that could affect many Colorado community resources, including all  FRCC campuses. It’s called Amendment B, and it centers around whether or not to repeal the Gallagher Amendment. To be clear, a “yes” vote is a vote to repeal the amendment, while a “no” vote means keeping Gallagher in place.  

A “yes” vote to repeal the Gallagher Amendment, an outdated attempt to lower taxes, will go a long way to building better communities in Colorado. The reality is that a 10 percent home value increase on a $300,000 home amounts to an increase of $175 in property taxes yearly. That’s $14.58 per month, or about the cost of Netflix. This amount, while nominal to many homeowners, adds up significantly multiplied over many residences. That increase in revenue, now more than ever, is something our communities need. In the face of greatly reduced sales tax revenue, our local governments are struggling to provide the same services most of us use and enjoy.

According to Wikipedia, “The Gallagher Amendment was an amendment to the Colorado Constitution enacted in 1982 concerning property tax. It set forth the guidelines in the Colorado Constitution for determining the actual value of property and the valuation for assessment of such property.”

In plain English, the Gallagher Amendment took the tax responsibility off of residential homeowners and shifted it more to business owners in a 45-55 ratio. This helped ease the property tax burden as home prices rose rapidly in Colorado, especially since 2012. 

However, the result of this is that many community resources remain underfunded year after year, as mill levies fail to pass and property taxes are often cut instead of increasing. The community resources range from public schools to community colleges to libraries to fire stations to disability services, just to name a few. With more tax money, Front Range could provide more affordable tuition to its students. In Colorado, residents are required to vote on any tax changes, and often vote against increased taxation. This creates a cascading effect, where services remain annually underfunded and are limited in the resources they can provide. 

What does a “yes” vote to repeal the Gallagher Amendment mean? This year particularly, it means that any service funded by the government won’t continue to have its budget slashed (aside from what already occurred at the beginning of fiscal year 2020 in July). Repealing the Gallagher Amendment also won’t raise property taxes. It will freeze them in place. This means they won’t be cut, whereas if the Amendment stays in place, next year property taxes may decrease by 18 percent. 

A “no” vote means that the Amendment will stay in place with its 45-55 ratio of property tax to businesses. In many rural communities, this causes the local government budgets (that rely on tax revenue) to stagnate as property tax assessments fall from year to year. In places where home prices are rising rapidly, like the Front Range, the taxes don’t fall, but they also don’t increase. This also leads to stagnation as community resources can’t deliver to their full potential. 

Written by Joe Fisk

Administrative positions at FRCC have had to work quickly in response to the pandemic, organizing events around health and safety protocol and tracking COVID-19 cases through FRCC COVID-19 Reporting. 

Stacey Hogan, FRCC’s associate vice president of Strategic Planning and Institutional Effectiveness works with the pages, where any member of the FRCC community can report a case.

“Somebody can report for themselves,” said Hogan, “Or for a classmate, or if a faculty, or instructor had a student come to them and say they are symptomatic, been exposed, or have tested positive, they can submit it on behalf of a student. It can really be anybody about themselves or another member of the FRCC community. ”

Cathy Pellish, vice president of the FRCC Westminster campus and Dean of Instruction, Mathematics, English and Communication has seen and experienced administrative positions work fast in response to the pandemic.

“The biggest impact on employees in general, but more specifically those who are leading some of the administrative positions is the amount of work and then the pace at which we have to work.” said Pellish.

The increased workload and pace has been in response to legal, health and Department of Higher Education requirements. 

“We have to work so much more quickly because everything was changing rapidly in the spring,” said Pellish, “How do we respond to public health requirements? How do we respond to the Governor’s requirements? How do we respond to the Colorado Department of Higher Ed. Departments? So there is a lot of change there.” 

Many FRCC employees are now working remotely. Pellish has seen productivity despite the changes.

“I think what I’ve seen is incredible flexibility and creativity coming from employees,” said Pellish. “I have also seen and been very encouraged by how well everyone is able to work efficiently and productively from remote. Those are really good lessons in how we can continue business moving forward.”

Others in administrative positions, such as Darrick Silversmith, FRCC Westminster’s Student Involvement Coordinator have been challenged by other COVID-19 related changes. The decrease of on-campus traffic has changed Student Life’s process of hosting events.

“It’s been hard in the sense that our entire programming was affected,” said Silversmith. “Because generally, students were on campus, and we had face-to-face interaction with them. Now we’re in a situation where there’s not a lot of students on campus so we have to get the word out about our events either through virtual avenues like the Online Student Union or Instagram or text message.” 

Although some events have gone virtual due to the pandemic, Student Life has still been able to do some events on campus. The events have been outdoors and follow health and safety protocols with contact tracing.

“During Welcome Week, we actually got approval to do Welcome Waffles,” said Silversmith. “Which was a food truck event that lasted for two days. Then the following week, we did a grab-and-go situation where we purchased breakfast burritos and then brought them to campus and gave them out to students outside. A lot of our programming on campus has been outdoors with six-feet social distancing protocols and masks. We’ve also had to keep a list of who were serving for contact tracing. ” 

With rapid changes over the spring, summer and now fall semesters due to COVID-19, the FRCC community has been adapting and continuing education.

“Our faculty, staff and college leadership have done an incredible job with planning and having a scenario B, C, D, E and F,” said Hogan. “And really just doing their best to make this not only safe, but also academically productive and valuable time for our students. And I want to commend students, I have not been on campus a lot, but I’ve been talking with some folks that have. For the most part, we have folks following our guidelines related to wearing masks and social distancing.”

With registration for spring semester classes opening in November, FRCC will offer more on campus classes. However, the increase of on campus classes will be gradual, and real-time remote classes will still be offered.

“We’ll approach it a lot like fall, meaning that many of our classes will be what we call real-time remote,” said Pellish. “But we are going to increase the amount of classes held on campus. So it will be a real gradual increase in on-campus traffic. We will offer more in person face-to-face opportunities in the spring than we did the fall, but it won’t be fully back to normal. We just can’t commit to that right now.”

Information and updates on COVID-19, case reporting and guidelines can be found on the FRCC COVID-19 Updates Page.

Written by Rhiana Bilderaya

Virtually no sector, public or private, has been untouched by the novel COVID-19 pandemic. FRCC Westminster and higher education institutions throughout the country are no exception. Many closed in March for the remainder of spring semester when it became clear that the virus was spreading. Faculty at FRCC Westminster are adjusting to real time remote learning, one of the new learning options for students. 

“Real-time remote” is the term for classes that can be taught virtually. It means that students have an assigned class time, they log onto Zoom for their meeting time, and they submit their work online via Desire to Learn. Attendance and participation are expected. This option is less expensive than online learning and meant to mimic traditional in person classes.

Tamara Box, who teaches computer science classes at FRCC Westminster, said she normally teaches a mix of in person and online classes each semester. 

“D2L is an excellent platform for setting up remote learning and that makes the course content and infrastructure very easy,” Box said. “However, despite all of these advantages, I still prefer to have some face time with students every week. It is difficult to cater virtual sessions to meet everyone’s schedules.” 

Because her class is computer-based, she is teaching remotely this semester. The loss of in-person interaction has come with some challenges for her and her students. Despite this, she has some tips for success. 

“To be successful as a remote student or teacher, you have to put in the effort to connect,” Box said. “Sure, you can get through the whole class barely speaking with anyone, but you’ll have such a richer experience if you try to engage with students and the instructor. Go to the virtual office hours, IM the instructor with questions, reach out to your peers in discussions and help each other!”

Another computer science professor, Leslie Hurr, is enjoying teaching remotely, despite being worried about the loss of facetime turning students off of college classes. 

“I am nervous I’m going to lose students [who are] intimidated by the remote fashion,” Hurr said. “I try to tell my students, online and remote, that I’m available for them. I’ll do a Zoom session or stay after class.”

Overall, she has a very positive outlook about COVID-19 and its effects on both her personally and at FRCC Westminster. She talked at length about President Andy Dorsey’s weekly town halls and the extensive support for faculty.

“FRCC has advanced so much because of COVID,” Hurr said. “Andy Dorsey and so many people have joined together as a unified group to do as much as they possibly can to provide training and resources. Andy never used to have town halls, and now he has two a week.”

Leslie stated that she may even want to teach virtually long-term. Prior to COVID-19, she had a long commute. Now, she just walks downstairs to her office. Between the increased flexibility and support for staff, her outlook is bright.

 “We need to rise above and work as a team, all of us together,” Hurr said. “Andy Dorsey sees this as another opportunity for us to offer a different mode [of learning] for those that end up liking it. I do think that COVID has advanced everyone further technologically.”