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El Paso Community College (EPCC) is one of the five local entities that tax our properties.
It was established by the voters of El Paso County in 1969. The Texas Legislature appropriated funds in 1971 and classes began that fall with 901 students enrolled.
The mission of El Paso Community College is “to ensure affordable, high quality education and career pathways from start to finish.”
According to the budget for FY 2024-25, EPCC has $259,753,927 in expenditures, of which $57,716,562 are earmarked for instruction.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act request and obtained a complete list of the 2,837 EPCC employees and their salaries. The highest paid employee is President William Serrata, who earns $460,461. There are ten Vice-Presidents and Assistant Vice-Presidents who earn between $130,222 and $270,400.
The budget is primarily supported by a tax of $0.107786 per $100 of property valuation, which is the no-new revenue rate for FY 2024-25.
According to the EPCC webpage, there are currently 32,128 students enrolled, 25% of which are full-time. That is about 8,000 more students than UTEP.
EPCC was originally focused on vocational education for the El Paso region but in recent years has developed into a “feeder” institution for UTEP. That is, a high percentage of its courses replicate UTEP courses at a lower cost to students and are often taught by faculty without terminal degrees. Thus, many students complete their lower-divisions courses for their major at EPCC at a steep discount, courtesy of local taxpayers, and then transfer to UTEP to complete their degrees.
We cannot understand why this “feeder” system exists and why local taxpayers are subsidizing it.
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