Palomar College earns an 'A+' on Taxpayer Foundation's Transparency Report Card

SAN MARCOS – Palomar College earned a perfect score for transparency in a recent report from the San Diego County Taxpayers Education Foundation, which evaluated 23 area school districts with active bonds for its 2019 School Bond Transparency Report Card.

In 2006, voters in the Palomar Community College District approved Proposition M, a $694 million bond measure to maintain and modernize the college. The bond has funded a vast campaign of upgrades and new construction across the district, including new education centers in Rancho Bernardo and Fallbrook, and major projects like the new library and award-winning maintenance and operations building at the San Marcos campus.

Since the bond's passage, the college has maintained an Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee to ensure that bond revenues are expended only for the purposes approved by voters. The foundation's recent report card largely examined the transparency of local bond oversight committees, including Palomar College's, which was given an A+ rating.

"The ICOC and our staff at Palomar College have done a fantastic job of keeping the taxpayers in our district apprised of the significant improvements funded by Propostion M every step of the way," Joi Lin Blank, Ph.D., superintendent and president of Palomar College, said. "This report card acknowledges their hard work to maintain transparency with our stakeholders, and our fiscal stewardship of this generous commitment by local taxpayers."

The San Diego Taxpayers Educational Foundation is the nonpartisan educational programming arm of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, conducting studies and research to support the association's efforts.

"School bonds can be seen in nearly every election cycle, and for taxpayers to continue supporting these measures, we need to know school districts are fulfilling their promises," Haney Hong, president and CEO of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, said in a prepared statement.

For more information about Proposition M, visit https://www2.palomar.edu/pages/propm. Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee reports and more can be accessed at www2.palomar.edu/pages/propm/icoc.

Submitted by Palomar College.