TH URSDAY, ApRil 8, 2010 • 50¢
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Hinds CC hikes tuition, meal costs
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By The Associated Press
NEW COACH
Millsaps’ Aaron Pelch excited B1
WEATHER Tonight: Partly cloudy; low near 38 Friday: Partly cloudy; high near 72 Mississippi River:
40.7 feet Rose: 0.1 foot Flood stage: 43 feet
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DEATHS • Larry E. Cannon • Stacy McDaniels Jr. • Gary McCaa Russum Sr.
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TODAY iN HiSTORY 1513: Explorer Juan Ponce de Leon and his expedition begin exploring the Florida coastline. 1952: President Harry S. Truman seizes the steel industry to avert a nationwide strike. (The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that Truman had overstepped his authority.) 1973: Artist Pablo Picasso dies at his home near Mougins, France, at age 91. 1974: Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hits his 715th career home run in a game against the Los AngeHank les DodgAaron ers, breaking Babe Ruth’s record. 1988: TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart resigns from the Assemblies of God after he was defrocked for rejecting an order from the church’s national leaders to stop preaching for a year amid reports he’d consorted with a prostitute. 1990: Ryan White, the teenage AIDS patient whose battle for acceptance gained national attention, dies in Indianapolis at age 18.
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ONliNE www.vicksburgpost.com VOLUME 128 NUMBER 98 2 SECTIONS
KATIE CARTER•The Vicksburg PosT
APAC Mississippi equipment operator Rodrick Davis, right, and the rest of the crew put finishing
touches on a patch of Wisconsin Avenue Wednesday afternoon.
Wisconsin, Clay work coming to end By Steve Sanoski ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com Stimulus-funded paving projects on Clay Street and Wisconsin Avenue are nearing completion with APAC Mississippi crews on track to finish the work before the April 23 contract deadline. “They’ll have to come back and do some permanent striping on the roads, but the bulk of the work is coming to a close,” said Public Works Director Bubba Rainer on Wednesday.
APAC Mississippi is being paid $637,605.04 to mill and repave Clay Street, from Cherry Street to Mission 66, and Wisconsin Avenue, from Interstate 20 to Bazinsky Road. As of Wednesday afternoon, milling and paving of Clay was completed, and the work on Wisconsin was more than half complete. The city dedicated all of its $947,635 allocation in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to paving. With planning, testing and engineering costs fac-
tored in, Rainer said there will be no stimulus funds left. Meanwhile, Wisconsin Avenue between Bazinsky and Porters Chapel roads remains closed due to ongoing work by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center on a bridge and access road beneath. That project kicked off in February, and the road is expected to be closed through July. Wisconsin Avenue traffic is being detoured onto Bazinsky Road.
JACKSON — Students at Hinds Community College will be paying more this fall, after trustees voted Wednesday to increase tuition and meal plan costs. College officials say the increases are necessary as the school is serving an unprecedented number of students while seeing its state funding cut. Tuition for full-time students will be $980 per semester, an increase of $150. Part-time students will pay $100 per credit hour, an increase of $15 per credit hour. In contrast, the cost for one academic hour at most of the state universities is about $200. The last time Hinds raised tuition was in 2005. Students living on campus in Raymond and Utica will also see their meal plan increase $150 a semester, to $920 for 19 meals a week. Wednesday’s decision does not affect other community colleges. In January, the Board of Trustees of the State Institutions of Higher Learning approved tuition increases between 4.5 and 9 percent at Mississippi’s eight public universities. College board officials said the increase in university tuitions make up about 36 percent of budget shortfalls predicted for the coming school year. Institutions will address about $116.1 million of the expected $182.5 million shortfall in state appropriations through cuts, efficiencies and enrollment growth. Hinds is the state’s largest community college with about 19,000 students enrolled annually at the main campus in Raymond and branches in Vicksburg, Utica, Pearl and Jackson.
‘I think we can realize some serious savings by no longer operating as eight individual islands.’ Hank Bounds Education commissionEr
Archives & History to consider Ceres house By Danny Barrett Jr. dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com
has visited the issue several times in the past 30 years, with opinions on the build building’s structural authentic authenticAn effort to save the planity swinging back and forth. tation house at Ceres has The structure has undergone landed discussion of the countless changes since the structure on the agenda of first portions were erected. the Mississippi Department “I think they’ll just take of Archives and History. the matter up,” said Wayne Designating the home, parts Mansfield, executive direc direcof which date to 1830, a Mistor of the port commission, sissippi Landmark will be diswhich manages countycussed by trustees when the FIlE•The Vicksburg PosT owned industrial properties. board meets April 16, execuCeres plantation house The house came with the tive director Hank Holmes sion in March. If the designation is 1987 purchase of cropland in east said. approved, the house can’t be moved Warren County which was transThe move stops the Warren or altered in any significant way, but formed into the Ceres Research County Port Commission from it doesn’t require any action to halt allowing demolition under either of See Ceres, Page A7. two proposals tabled by the commis- years of deterioration. The agency
A pair of advisory opinions requested by Warren County from the Attorney General’s Office appear to clear hurdles for purchasing a large boat for rescues on the Mississippi River and an alternative method of enforcing collection of property taxes. In October, supervisors agreed to put up $51,093.75 to match $204,375 from the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security to pay for a boat
and other equipment for search and rescue. Additional money will be needed to pay for a truck big enough to haul the boat, a trailer and storage space. Warren County and the Gulf Coast-based Department of Maritime Resources were awarded the money as part of a previous application by the state. In the letter, supervisors asked whether they had the authority to allocate the money. The opinion letter concluded that no restrictions exist in state purchasing law for purchases made via a disaster
By Pamela Hitchins phitchins@vicksburgpost.com
response-specific federal schedule. A boat has not been ordered, though Pace said the boat could wait if the board couldn’t follow through immediately on their intention to match the grant. “I fully understand the financial hardships,” Pace said. “If they make a decision otherwise, I’ll understand.” After initial hesitation on whether purchase, maintenance and operation of such a boat was feasible
Mississippi’s allocations to its eight public universities will decline by more than 25 percent by 2012, with resulting cuts to staffing, course offerings and even academic departments, Commissioner of Higher Education Dr. Hank Bounds predicts. “There won’t be any university that looks the same,” Bounds said Wednesday during an interview in Vicksburg. Overall, including tuition and other income, universities will be spending $1,000 less per year per student. Bounds, who took the post in June after serving as state Superintendent of Education for K-12 schools, said he has been looking at projected costs and revenues through fiscal 2012, “trying to determine what they might look like.” He’s been meeting with presidents and boards of the state’s public universities while poring over meticulous and detailed data. The result, he said, will be maintaining quality but gaining efficiency with utilities and other overhead and doing more with fewer people. Losses are projected to include 1,100 employees, 700 courses, 1,200 to 1,300
See County, Page A7.
See Schools, Page A7.
AG gives go-ahead on boat buy, tax collections By Danny Barrett Jr. dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com
State ed chief predicts cuts will top 25 %
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