Heartland trustees add four new sports, approve Brandt incentives

Posted on March 19, 2019
Heartland College Board
The Heartland Community College Board of Trustees Tuesday night voted to add four sports beginning in the fall of 2020, and granted a tax abatement for Brandt Industries. (File photo by Howard Packowitz/WJBC)

 

By Howard Packowitz

LINCOLN – A women’s volleyball team will take the court in the fall of 2020 for Heartland Community College, one of four new sports approved Tuesday night by the college’s Board of Trustees.

The board also unanimously agreed to field teams in women’s and men’s cross country and men’s golf. The annual cost for the new programs is $98,000, to be funded by student activity fees.

The National Junior College Athletic Association approved Heartland’s request to add new sports last fall. Heartland will use existing athletic facilities.

Trustees, meeting in Lincoln, were unanimous in deciding to keep their part of the bargain in the development agreement local taxing bodies reached with Brandt Industries.

Heartland will go ahead with the first of a series of annual property tax abatements after the Canadian agricultural equipment maker hired more than the required 50 full-time workers for its factory just north of Normal. A staff report indicated Brandt had 77 full-timers working there last month.

Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected]

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