Bonds To Provide Funding for the Construction of Schools. Hearing before the Committee on Indian Affairs on S. 2580 To Provide for the Issuance of Bonds To Provide Funding for the Construction of Schools of the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior. United States Senate, One Hundred Sixth Congress, Second Session.

A U.S. Senate committee hearing received testimony on the Indian School Construction Act, which would establish a bonding authority for leveraging existing tribal education funds through bonds to fund tribal school construction, maintenance, and repair. The testimony from U.S. senators and representatives of the Department of the Interior and American Indian organizations discussed the following: the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) school construction and repair backlog of over $1 billion; the terrible condition of school facilities on Indian reservations; the need to regard any bonding initiative as a supplement, not a replacement, to federal appropriations; the specific details of how tribes would issue bonds that would be secured by federal money in an escrow account and would have interest payments covered by federal tax credits; the question of federal loan guarantees; and the nature of the federal government's trust responsibility concerning educational assistance to tribes. The complete text of the Act is included. (SV)