At its board of directors meeting yesterday, the Sacramento Metro Chamber voted to endorse the Community College Initiative on the February 2008 statewide ballot.

“In order to keep California’s competitive edge over the next 20 years, almost 40 percent of the workforce will need to be college educated. Unfortunately, today we are well below that percentage,” said Matt Mahood, president & CEO of the Sacramento Metro Chamber. “Our community college system is this region's lynchpin to ensuring we produce the highly skilled workers required to meet the demands of the next technological era."

Passing the Community College Initiative will offer more affordable and accessible academic and vocational education for both recent high school graduates and those returning to school. And the initiative does this without raising taxes.

The Sacramento Metro Chamber is the second largest chamber of commerce in the state of California with nearly 2,500 member businesses. As the Sacramento region’s leading business organization creating economic strength throughout the six-county Sacramento region, the Metro Chamber realizes that critical importance of growing human capital from within the community in order to serve as leaders in the workforce for tomorrow.

The Community College Initiative makes a commitment to community colleges, ensuring they receive adequate and stable funding. The measure guarantees a stable system of independent public community college districts and Board of Governors; requires minimum levels of state funding that grows along with the student population, and sets fees at $15 dollars per unit and limits future fee increases to no more than the cost of living.

The Sacramento Metro Chamber joins a broad coalition of community college leaders, advocates, local trustees and students – including the California Federation of Teachers, the Community College League of California, the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, the California School Employees Association and the Los Angeles College Faculty Guild - in supporting the Community College Initiative

For more information on the Community College Initiative, please visit www.CaliforniansForCommunityColleges.org.