The MSBA Presents $42 Million to The City of Boston For Jeremiah Burke School

Over $200 Million has been given to the City of Boston for School Construction Projects

BOSTON, MA – State Treasurer Tim Cahill, Chair of the Massachusetts School Building Authority (“MSBA”), and Katherine Craven, MSBA Executive Director, presented a $42,428,028 million check to Mayor Thomas Menino today for the newly renovated Jeremiah E. Burke School. This payment is in addition to over $157 million already reimbursed to Boston for over 90 school construction projects throughout the city.

The Burke educational facility is being reimbursed under the MSBA’s Pro-Pay “pay-as-you-build” system. Under this system, communities are reimbursed monthly as school construction costs are incurred. These timely payments have prevented Boston from having to issue debt to finance the MSBA’s share of projects costs.

“I am pleased to present this check to Mayor Menino for the Burke School,” said Treasurer Cahill. “In this instance the MSBA’s “pay-as-you-build” system has saved the taxpayers of Boston approximately $25 million in avoided interest costs.”

"The MSBA's "pay-as-you-build" system has always been a great help to the City of Boston in providing quality education in an appropriate setting," said Mayor Menino. "This check represents a partnership between the city and state to continually invest in today's youth to ensure a very bright future despite these tough financial times."

During the next five years, the MSBA will collaborate with municipalities to equitably invest up to $2.5 billion in schools across the Commonwealth by finding the right-sized, most fiscally responsible and educationally appropriate solutions to create safe and sound learning environments. The MSBA is committed to protecting the taxpayer’s dollar by improving the school building grant process and avoiding the mistakes of the past in the funding and construction of school facilities.

“We are proud of the partnership we have formed with the City of Boston,” said Katherine Craven, Executive Director of the MSBA. “Treasurer Cahill and I are also proud that we have developed a school building process that works in the best interests of the taxpayers and will be sustainable for years to come.”

To date, the MSBA has made approximately $6 billion in reimbursements to cities and towns for school construction projects inherited from the former program -- $3.8 billion of which are accelerated “payments-in-full” to districts which had been waiting years for a partial payment from the state prior to the creation of the MSBA. Those payments have saved municipalities millions of dollars in interest costs and reinvigorated a system that once had $11 billion in outstanding obligations. In its four year history, the MSBA has successfully contained the Commonwealth’s formerly rampant and unsustainable financial liability for the costs of 1,150 local school construction projects and last year was able to reopen a sustainable, reformed grant program as a result of programmatic reforms and sound fiscal management.

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