Republican George Allen and Democrat Paul Goldman (Virginians both) have teamed up to write an interesting piece in the New York Time s urging Congress to modify certain tax credit rules so that they include school renovations. By so doing, they believe private investors would be induced to buy school buildings, renovate them for the tax savings, and then lease them back to the districts. There is some precedent for this, they explain:
When Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia was the mayor of Richmond, he used this basic sale-leaseback arrangement to update a local school, Maggie L. Walker High, built during the Depression, and transform it into a regional magnet school that reopened in 2001 and now serves the top students in Central Virginia... Mr. Kaine saved local taxpayers millions in this $20 million renovation because Virginia has a 25 percent state historic rehabilitation tax credit, on top of the 20 percent federal tax credit. Other states have their own special incentives, and more are now considering them.
Of course there's an obvious public-relations problem, they acknowledge:
Critics may scream that our approach "sells our schools" to the private sector. But what national interest is served by denying local officials access to private capital to provide schoolchildren the opportunities they deserve?
And no national interest is served by closing off creative methods for dealing with the budget shortfalls that states and districts are facing from coast to coast???shortfalls that will get worse when stimulus money runs out. Schools need as many fiscal ideas as possible, so kudos to Allen and Goldman for surfacing this one.
