Treasurer Cahill and MSBA announce $100 Million investment in Massachusetts Vocational Schools

Total MSBA investment of $300 million to vocational education

BOSTON, MA - State Treasurer Tim Cahill, Chair of the Massachusetts School Building Authority (“MSBA”) and Katherine Craven, MSBA Executive Director, are pleased to announce a new $100 Million investment initiative to fund capital improvements in Massachusetts vocational technical high schools.

This $100 Million new investment is in addition to $200 Million that the MSBA has already committed to vocational technical high schools in the past three years. This $300 Million combined investment is the largest investment made in Massachusetts vocational education in the past thirty years.

Today’s announcement is another major commitment by the MSBA and Treasurer Cahill to ensure that vocational education remains an important contributor to the Commonwealth’s economy. An investment in vocational technical high schools will result in an economic return to taxpayers in the form of job-ready graduates to fill and create jobs that fuel the Massachusetts economy.

“The MSBA’s commitment to vocational technical schools is a commitment to strengthening the Massachusetts economy by providing necessary improvements to school facilities that educate and train a skilled workforce,” said Treasurer Cahill.

“Over the last three years, state and local taxpayers have expended nearly $200 Million in improvements to vocational school building facilities across the Commonwealth,” said MSBA Executive Director Katherine Craven. “This new $100 initiative will help maintain that extraordinary investment.”

In Massachusetts, enrollment in vocational schools has increased 15% over the last 10 years. Currently, there are almost 3,000 students on waiting lists at vocational technical and agricultural schools throughout the state. Recognizing the demand for vocational educational training, in 2008, the MSBA created a vocational-technical education task force to better understand the issues affecting vocational high schools and how to best target funding for school facility improvements.

To date, the MSBA has made approximately $6.2 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 that 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 five 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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