March 17, 2010

Congressman Faleomavaega announced today that American Samoa has been allocated over $10 million for qualified school construction bonds as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) that was passed by Congress on February 17, 2009. 

According to Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, “Recovery Act school construction bonds provide low-cost borrowing to build and upgrade schools which is a win-win for communities across the country.  The projects funded with these bonds create jobs today building modern schools to prepare our kids for the global economy of tomorrow.”

In 2010, the Recovery Act will allocate $6.6 billion in bonding authority to 50 states and 4 territories.  The remaining $4.4 billion will be allocated to 103 large local educational agencies under a statutory formula tied to levels of federal education grant funding.  Under ARRA (Title I, Subtitle F, Part III, Section 1521), American Samoa’s allocation is determined on the “basis of respective populations of individuals below the poverty line” as a portion of the entire U.S. population below the poverty line.  This year, American Samoa will be eligible for $10,614,000 in Recovery Act school construction bonds.

 “Essentially, these tax credit bonds will allow ASG to obtain low-cost financing for much needed construction, rehabilitation or repair of our schools and may also be used for the acquisition of land where a school will be built.  Projects funded with these bonds will provide American Samoa with a means of better preparing our children for future academic success by improving the quality of their learning environments, and I thank Congress and the Obama Administration for working closely with the Congressional Delegates to make sure that our requests for opportunities and funding were included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” Faleomavaega concluded.