Ozarks Tech chancellor predicts need for tax levy increase

Ozarks Technical Community College may be headed back to voters for an increase in its tax levy.

Chancellor Hal Higdon spoke to the need yesterday during Springfield Business Journal's People You Need to Know event. He was interviewed live by SBJ Executive Editor Christine Temple at Alamo Drafthouse Springfield.

"We're at 20 cents," he said of Ozarks Tech's current levy on every $100 of assessed property value. "We're extremely low."

First up, Ozarks Tech would determine whether the appetite is there among voters.

"We're not going to go to the community without knowing that they support it," Higdon said. "We're going to talk to the community."

Future construction projects could be a possibility with increased funding.

"We'd really like to build a construction trades building in Springfield that will not happen without cooperation from the state and from our local tax base," Higdon said.

Ozarks Tech last received voter approval for a 5-cent increase in its tax levy in 2018, bringing it to 20 cents per $100 of assessed property value, according to past reporting. 

The increase helped fund the Robert W. Plaster Center for Advanced Manufacturing, a $40 million facility that opened at Ozarks Tech's Springfield campus in 2022. 

'Scrappy' operation
Higdon said that for Ozarks Tech – which he noted is not as well funded as other community colleges statewide – "if it wasn't for being scrappy, we would have just folded our tent." According to the college’s website, Ozarks Tech, at 13% of the total, has less state appropriations than St. Louis Community College (26%) and Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City (19%). 

He added, "I've said it many times – we run more like a private institution than we do a public institution, because so little of our money comes from the state."

Ozarks Tech reported nearly 11,000 students in fall 2025, up from 1,198 when it opened its doors in 1991, according to the college website.

"Yet we're funded less than half of what some of the other community colleges in the state are," he said. "And the same is true for universities. Missouri State is subject to the same thing. So, we have a formula in our state that rewards not growing and punishes growing. As Missouri State grew, their funding didn't grow; as Mizzou grew, their funding didn't grow. As schools like Truman State shrank, they didn't lose money. So, we have a very backward way of doing things."