Two TJC bond campaign signs encouraging opposite opinions. The campaign signs were placed all over Smith county, where the bond would affect people. (Ian Frye)TJC’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously to take a bond election to the public in February 2026 for $167 million, to build three new buildings on TJC’s main campus.
“There’s really three projects that are supported by this bond. One would be a much needed workforce and Academic Training Center and facility, Student Resources Center. Obviously, our students are everything to us, and so that would be a critical new construction project. And then finally, a student safety and IT new building,” Kim Lessner, TJC’s vice president of operations said.
Shelbie Glover, the president and CEO of the Lindale Area Chamber of Commerce, a TJC Alumna, and co-chair of the “Vote Yes TJC Bond” campaign, was invited in 2025, to tour TJC’s campus and be part of the Facilities Planning Committee.
“We spent all year, last year looking at the campus, looking at the needs and the wants and the desires going into the 100 year celebration. What do the next 100 years for TJC look like, and what are the needs there?” Glover said.
TJC hired a firm, Freese and Nichols, to do a master plan study. They evaluated all of TJC’s campuses from a visual standpoint, the frequency of the building’s use, and the building’s structural integrity.
“The strongest needs of the campus right now is No. 1, a new academic building. TJC campus is a very large campus with lots of students, and STEM is really important in that new academic building, the Pirtle Technology building,” Glover said. “We toured it, and it’s time for an update. And technology has grown since Pirtle was established, and so that’s the No. 1 need, is academic classrooms.”
Campus police are currently not centralized on campus and the IT department is located in the White Administration Building and in the basement of the Vaughn Library.
“The police department is in a home adjacent to the campus, and so the safety needs of a growing campus are also relevant in our minds,” Glover said. “We also toured the white administration building and saw the IT department in the basement… We saw how one issue could lead to major IT problems in the future.”
TJC’s vision for the Student Resource Center is to have resources in one centralized building rather than spread out across campus. The campus has roughly 18 departments for assisting and supporting students.
“Whether it’s our admissions office, our scholarships office, financial aid office, we have tutoring to help support. You think about all those various resources that we have. We don’t want to have those resources here and students not to take advantage of them,” Lessner said. “So right now, some of those departments are hidden in lots of different locations because that’s where we had space to put that department. But that doesn’t always make it easy on a student. We really want them to have one stop.”
By building a new Student Resource Center and transferring the departments out of the Rogers Student Center, room will be made for student clubs and organizations.
“We’ll actually have an opportunity for Rogers Student Center to be a real student center. Right now, testing is in there, advising is in there; We have the dean of students in there,” Lessner said. “It’s an asset for our students to participate, but we don’t want to make it hard then for ‘Where do these clubs meet? How do they participate?’ A proper student resource center would do that.”
If the bond passes, two of TJC’s oldest residential dorms will be taken down to make space for the new buildings. According to Lessner, 1,200 out of TJC’s 20,000 students live on campus, and about 80 beds would be lost if the two dorms were taken down.
According to TJC’s Fast Facts and Institutional Data, “TJC serves almost 20,000 students across its credit and non-credit programs, over 16,000 in credit programs and nearly 4,000 in continuing studies.”
TJC has proposed and received five out of five bonds in its 100-year existence for a rough total of $27 million combined, according to Lessner. The upcoming bond would be more than six times than the previous bonds.
“We do see that the community is getting behind this bond because, again, of education, of being the No. 1 priority. It’s hard to say no to education,” Glover said. “In fact, Dr. Ray Perryman, which is a Lindale native, but an economic adviser you know all over the world, says, ‘When you educate a child, there’s nothing to stop them, but when you don’t educate a child, there’s nothing to save them.’”
If TJC’s bond passes, it will mean a tax increase for property owners in the TJC taxing district, which includes part of Van Zandt County and most of Smith County, excluding Whitehouse and Bullard.
“When it is passed, taxpayers will see a $7 increase per month on a $250,000 home,” Glover said. “And of course, if you’re over 65, your taxes are frozen, so you won’t see an increase at all.”
TJC will be paying this bond back over the course of up to 30 years; however, according to Lessner, there is a chance TJC could pay it off in 20 years instead of 30, which would save millions in interest rates.
“We’re asking for $167 million. We do understand that there’s taxes and interest, you know, payments that go with that, but it’s kind of like a mortgage on a house,” said Glover. “Once you get it all finalized and then you start paying it down, it can always vary, because, just like, if you were to pay your home off early.”
Early voting is from April 20-28, and Election day is May 2. More information on voting and early voting times, dates and locations can be found at smith-county.com, vanzandtcounty.org and frequently asked questions can be found and answered at tjcbond.com.
