Houston Community College’s governing board took a series of steps this week to close an unexpected $67-million deficit in a campus-construction program for which the institution had already received $151-million in a bond issue approved by local voters in 2003, the Houston Chronicle reported on Thursday. Among other things, the board approved a technology fee on students, rescinded a planned property-tax break, and delayed part of the building plan. The goal, board members said, was to avoid a tax increase. A major source of the deficit is the skyrocketing cost of building materials and labor across the country, but particularly along the Gulf Coast, in the aftermath of last summer’s devastating hurricanes (The Chronicle, January 6).