Several higher education bond and governance issues were on the ballot in this year’s election, and the returns indicate that the funding measures were broadly supported by voters. Here’s a summary of those results.
Rhode Island
In Rhode Island, voters approved all four bond questions that were presented. Question 2 was a $160 million bond issue to pay for capital improvements to higher education facilities, including construction of a new $87.5 million University of Rhode Island biomedical sciences building at its Kingston campus and $73 million to renovate facilities for the Institute for Cybersecurity & Emerging Technologies at Rhode Island College. It passed 59.6% to 40.4%.
New Mexico
Voters in New Mexico passed Question 3 by almost a two-t0-one margin (65.4% in favor, 34.6% opposed). This public education bond issues asked voters to authorize the state to issue $230.26 million in bonds for capital improvements and acquisitions for public higher education institutions, special public schools, and tribal schools.
Included in that package is $50.5 million for New Mexico State University and $94.5 million for various projects at the University of New Mexico.
Utah
Utah voters approved Amendment B. While not a bond issue, it would modify the Utah Constitution’s limit on how much money Utah can spend from investment gains in its State School Fund for the state’s public schools. The Utah Constitution currently limits how much of these earnings the state may distribute annually to 4% of the fund.
Constitutional Amendment B would increase the limit on the annual distributions from the State School Fund from 4% of the fund to 5% of the fund. Preliminary results showed that more than 70% of Utah voters were supporting Amendment B, which education advocates had championed as a way to provide more public funding for education without a tax increase.
California
California voters voted in favor of Proposition 2, which would authorize $10 billion in general obligation bonds for the repair, renovation, and construction of facilities at K-12 public schools, community colleges, and career technical education programs. About $1.5 billion of the total would go toward community college projects. Prop 2 was passing with a 57% to 43% margin.
Nevada
One closely watched non-bonding measure was on the ballot in Nevada where Question 1 asked voters to amend the state Constitution to take away the constitutional status of the elected Board of Regents and give state legislators the authority to “review, reform and improve the programs and operations” of the state’s public universities.
A similar measure was narrowly defeated in 2020, and Nevada voters rejected the proposal again this year by a bigger margin of 55% to 45%.