(Radio Iowa)/KJAN) – As we reported Wednesday morning here on KJAN, a bond referendum for Iowa Western Community College failed to win voter approval by a slim margin, leaving college administrators and supporters to figure out a way to regroup. Iowa Western presented a 55 million dollar bonding referendum on General Election ballots in its 13-county community college district. Unofficial results show it fell a couple of hundred votes short of the 60 percent threshold required for approval. The final tally was 59-point-four percent.

Iowa Western President Dr. Dan Kinney said  “This would have allowed us to continue to build career and technical education jobs and, you know, definitely in rural and be able support our communities and things,” Kinney says, “and do it without a tax rate increase,” Kinney says. The referendum called for extending a current property tax levy that was set to expire — and use the money on technical training programs for in-demand careers and to expand the number of southwest Iowa students who could take Iowa Western Community College classes while they’re still in high school.

“A little disappointment there, but we’re a strong institution,” Kinney said. “We’ll keep moving forward.” Kinney says in retrospect, the college needed to do a better job of spreading the word that the proposal did not raise property taxes, but extended an existing levy for the college that was set to expire. “People didn’t know,” Kinney says. “I had people call me yesterday and they said: ‘It really wasn’t going to raise it.’ And I said: ‘No, it wasn’t.’ And they said: ‘Oh my God. I would have voted for it. I did not understand that.”

Kinney says part of the challenge was reaching voters across the 13 counties that are in the Iowa Western Community College region. Over 76-thousand residents in the region voted on the bond referendum.