Reeser: Lt. Gov. Patrick is working to get TSTC a billion dollar endowment

HARLINGEN, Texas – Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is working to help Texas State Technical College System secure an endowment that will start at $1 billion dollars.

That was the news TSTC Chancellor Mike Reeser gave on a visit to Harlingen earlier this week. The event was hosted by the Greater Chamber of Harlingen.

Reeser said the endowment would help TSTC-Harlingen expand to meet the needs of the fast-growing Rio Grande Valley region.

“I’d like to tell you a quick story if I could. TSTC has ten campuses right now. So, there are nine others, other than Harlingen. There’s a new one coming up out of the ground in New Braunfels. And there’s going to be another new one up in Denton County. Now both of those were added by the legislature during the last session,” Reeser said.

“But all of our campuses are not quite as big as they could be. And the reason is the way that our funding flows, we aren’t quite a university system, and we aren’t quite a community college. We don’t levy property taxes. So, Harlingen doesn’t pay any property taxes to TSTC. And that’s how two-year colleges tend to build their buildings.”

Reeser continued: “We have been working with the legislature and I want you to know that Governor Patrick over in the Senate has told us that he wants to once again sponsor an effort in the legislature this session to try to create an endowment for TSTC that will allow us the capital to build buildings on the various campuses that we have.

“So, to the extent that any of you are involved in this coming session with the legislature at all, we hope you’ll keep an eye out for that and offer your support for that sort of thing because we’re talking about a starting balance of a billion dollars. So that can be a meaningful part of helping TSTC continue to grow.

“RGV is growing like crazy. And we hope that the start we built over the past 50 years is going to give us a launching platform to keep up with the employment needs that y’all have.”

Reeser started his speech by pointing out that TSTC-Harlingen is one of the two flagship campuses in the system. He said the reason it is one of the two biggest, along with the one in Waco, is because of the commitment shown by Harlingen leaders over the decades.

“Harlingen and Waco are the flagship campuses, because they’re the oldest and they’re the biggest. I’ll tell you why Harlingen is the biggest. It’s because for all of that half century, that your TSTC has been here, it’s because the City of Harlingen and the EDC group and all the other community leaders in this region consistently supported the college.

“It supported the college with things like gifts of land or building construction capabilities or scholarships or things like that. And that kind of investment by the community was returned by the state of Texas in the form of growing the college that sits here today.

“And so, we are really proud to be both the beneficiary of your generosity, but the partner in economic development in realizing great things for RGV. We take that partnership very, very, seriously and I hope I wanted you to hear that directly from me.”

Editor’s Note: Here is a video recording of Chancellor Reeser’s comments at the Greater Chamber of Harlingen event:

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