A tax plan to help Virginia’s schools

By Ken Cuccinelli

ken_cuccinelli_04Earlier this week, I rolled out my K-12 education plan at Maggie L. Walker High School in Richmond.

Maggie Walker is a great school, but it wouldn’t be around today if it wasn’t for the existence of a federal historic preservation tax credit that allowed then-Richmond Mayor Tim Kaine to renovate and restore the depression-era school into a regional magnet school that today attracts some of the best students in Virginia. Kaine was able to secure a federal historic rehabilitation tax credit — 20 percent of the cost of the project —because the school was converted from a city school to a regional school.

Maggie Walker’s restoration, which saved Virginia taxpayers millions of dollars, would be more common in Virginia and around the country if not for a pesky sentence in the tax code that prevents private developers from being able to take advantage of the historic tax credit to renovate schools and provide students, particularly those in lower income neighborhoods, a better environment for learning.

In other words, private developers can currently apply for the tax credit to convert a historic school into an indoor putt-putt course but not back into a school. If that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to you, you are not alone.

Paul Goldman, a well-regarded Virginia Democratic strategist, has been behind building the bipartisan coalition of support for this concept. In my view, part of being an effective leader is the ability to embrace a good idea sparked by other people, especially those you don’t always agree with. Goldman has long been an advocate for federal legislation that would revise the tax code so that private investors can take advantage of the already-existing 20-percent historic tax credit to restore older schools (normally 50-years-old or more) into modern institutions of learning. Republicans and Democrats have voiced support for the idea. In 2011, Eric Cantor, Jim Webb, Bob McDonnell, Tim Kaine, George Allen, and Mark Warner all advocated for the legislation in an op-ed in POLITICO.

The concept makes sense for a number of reasons. For starters, it could create thousands of jobs in Virginia during a time of continued economic uncertainty. And it would encourage private investors to rehabilitate decaying schools and hire workers in the process.

Most significantly, however, the legislation would have profound impacts on our education system. Policymakers, educators, and parents have long decried the steady decline of America’s schools. We spend more money per capita on education than every country except Luxembourg, yet we’re being surpassed by a number of countries in a variety of subjects – especially math and science. Our country’s high school and college graduation rates have dropped 10 spots against our international peers over the last three decades.

I am not pretending to suggest that I have an answer to all of America’s education woes, but there are certainly obvious and immediate steps we can and should take to turn things around. What I do know is that we won’t be able to secure a bright long-term economic future unless we make sure the education system is working for all of our students, not just those who happen to reside in the right zip code.

Members of both parties from Virginia and around the country are in agreement that the federal code should be revised to allow for these tax credits to be applied to schools. Allowing private developers to invest in school renovation projects will free up taxpayer dollars for localities, allowing more resources to be injected directly into other educational resources, including teachers and technology.

It’s about time we stopped talking about how commonsensical the idea is and actually get it done.

Ken Cuccinelli is Attorney General of Virginia and the Republican nominee for governor. This article originally appeared in Politico and is reprinted with the author’s permission.

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