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NYPRESS.COM • THE LARGEST PAPER ON THE EAST SIDE • FEBRUARY 6, 2014
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Public Financing for Private Schools Under-the-radar agency helps exclusive schools raise hundreds of millions of dollars-- all while public schools scramble By Daniel Fitzsimmons
Photo by Victoria Pickering
What Will Happen to the Horses? The city’s horse carriage industry may be coming to an end – but no one is quite sure where the animals will go By Megan Bungeroth The horses pulling carriages through Central Park aren’t aware that their working days are numbered, which is probably for the best, considering their uncertain future. Currently there are about 220 horses registered with the Department of Health as working carriage horses in the city. If the city or state succeeds in banning the industry -- moves that now seem likely -- the question of what exactly will happen to these 220 horses is one that few people involved in the
debate seem able to answer. But the issue is highly charged, evoking alternating images of slaughter houses or retirement sanctuaries, depending on who’s talking. Eva Hughes, who owns horses with her carriage driver husband Thomas, fears that the city will try to dictate the fates of their beloved animals even after a ban is instituted. “These people who are trying to put us out of business and who have crafted legislation that effectively seizes our private property, our horses, will get our horses when they pry them out of our cold and lifeless hands,” Hughes said. “We will never surrender them. We are fully prepared to suffer the consequences. Our horses will never be taken from us in that way.” While she and her husband, who have owned dozens of horses throughout their 16 years operating carriages and have found Continued on page 4
A little-known program within the city’s Economic Development Corp. has become the chief vehicle by which private schools in Manhattan refinance their capital projects, funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to some of the priciest schools in the city. In 2013 alone, the Build NYC Resource Corp. brokered more than $439 million in low interest, tax free bonds for 24 private schools in Manhattan. The schools use this money to pay down prior debt they incurred from bonds they took with the city’s Industrial Development Agency and commercial banks at higher interest rates, money they used for their initial expansions. On the Upper East Side, schools such as the Spence School, the Chapin School, and Convent of the Sacred Heart School have secured millions in low-interest bonds for their capital projects. On the Upper West Side, the Calhoun School received a bond of $34 million and the Studio School got an
$8.8 million bond. Downtown, the Grace Church School used $40 million in citybrokered financing to cover expansions they made in 2006 and 2011. The city’s rationale for the program is that when these private schools expand, they create jobs and additional tax revenue for the city. BNYC’s stated goal is to act as a “conduit-bond issuer,” setting investors - banks - up with not-for-profit entities that use the money for capital projects, which ultimately, the city says, will provide increased jobs and tax revenue. Through a spokesperson, the EDC said that BNYC merely acts as a conduit, or access point, for private schools and other entities to secure low-interest bonds, and the city does indeed benefit from such deals. “Build NYC is not loaning the city’s money capital,” said the EDC spokesperson. But the prevalence of exclusive private schools in these bond deals has some public school proponents wondering why the city is diverting resources to help these schools - many of which come with $40,000-a-year tuition - in the first place. Shino Tanikawa, president of the District 2 Community Education Council, learned of the program just as her Lower Manhattan district is bracing for a shortage of 1,000 elementary school seats. “I find it outrageous the city is essentially Continued on page 5
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