§ 5255. Vermont independent school finance authority; established
There is hereby established a body corporate and politic, with corporate succession, to be known as the Vermont independent school finance authority. The authority is hereby constituted as an instrumentality exercising public and essential governmental functions, and the exercise by the authority of the powers conferred by this chapter are deemed to be an essential governmental function of the state. It is hereby declared to be in the public interest and to be the policy of the state to foster and promote by all reasonable means the provision of adequate capital markets and facilities for borrowing money by certain educational institutions which provide educational services to most students in their locality at as low a cost as possible. It is in the public interest and is the policy of the state to assist them by making funds available at reduced interest costs for orderly financing of improvements for such educational institutions, particularly for those institutions not otherwise able to borrow for those purposes. It is further declared that the state should exercise its powers in the interest of such educational institutions to further and implement those policies by authorizing a state instrumentality to be created as a body corporate and politic to have full powers to borrow money and to issue its bonds and notes to make funds available through the facilities of that instrumentality at reduced rates and on more favorable terms for borrowing and by granting broad powers to the instrumentality to accomplish and to carry out the aforesaid policies of the state which are in the public interest of the state and of its taxpayers and residents. It is further declared to be in the public interest and is the policy of the state that state funds should be applied or authorized to be paid to the state instrumentality created pursuant to this act only to provide adequate assurance and security to the holders of bonds or notes of such instrumentality; and further that such instrumentality should so conduct its operations as to provide the lowest rates as is consistent with a self-supporting operation with no expectation of subsidization with state funds. (Added 1999, No. 121 (Adj. Sess.), § 1.)