Options explored for schools
Thursday, November 30th, 2006
By Chris Fitzsimon
JULIA OLIVER
joliver@charlotteobserver.com
Members of the incoming board of county commissioners said this week they are interested in exploring alternative financing options for school construction, including working with a private company to build schools.
Coleman Shouse, whose company has built several Greenville, S.C., schools, spoke to a group of commissioners-elect, developers and school representatives Tuesday at Rolling Hills Country Club in Monroe. Shouse said private construction allows the schools to be built faster and more cheaply than government funding allows.
He said that by 2008 his company, Institutional Resources, will have built or renovated 70 schools in six years for the Greenville school district. He estimated the same feat would have taken the school system 32 years and at least $1 billion more.
The private building program involved forming a nonprofit group to borrow money for the project, Shouse said. That allowed the Greenville school system to avoid carrying the debt load. In South Carolina, school systems can’t borrow more than 8 percent of their assessed value, so the nonprofit was essential to allowing the $1 billion project to move forward, Shouse said.
Spending such a large amount of money quickly allowed the schools to be built faster, Shouse said, and saved the system certain costs related to inflation and the increasing prices of building materials.
"You’re fixing the cost of your money," Shouse said. "You’re limiting inflation to the period of the building program itself." (more…)
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