Republican Rep. Nancy Johnson, Connecticut, and Rep. Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, introduced a bipartisan school modernization bill, HR 4094, that would provide $24.8 billion of interest-free bonding authority for the nation’s public schools.

Johnson and Rangel introduced separate bills last year that had a total of 237 cosponsors, more than a House majority. Rangel is ranking member and Johnson a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, the panel that has jurisdiction over the legislation.

The compromise legislation would divide about $13 billion of the bonds among states based on school-age population and most of the balance would go to districts with large numbers of low-income children. About $400 million would go to schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Purchasers of the bonds would receive tax credits in lieu of interest payments. The Joint committee on Taxation estimates that the Johnson-Rangel bill would cost $1.76 billion over five years.

The proposed legislation would avoid the creation of a new federal bureaucracy. States and local school districts would decide what schools to build or repair. The federal role would be limited to making the initial allocation of bonds and to providing a tax credit to bond purchasers.

"This is a terrific opportunity to use federal dollars creatively in partnership with local governments to address the pressing need to renovate, modernize and build schools to educate our nation's public school students," said Robert Canavan, chair of Rebuild America's Schools, a national coalition of more than 50 businesses, education organizations and local school districts. "School modernization bonds will build new schools for our children in districts unable to modernize and build schools because their local property tax payers are already overburdened," said Canavan.

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that through such a system, a federal investment of $3.1 billion over five years would leverage $25 billion in school modernization bonds. .

For more information about the need for school modernization, please call Robert Canavan of Rebuild America's Schools at (202) 462-5911.