First, this confession: If we served on the Corvallis School Board, we'd be in a rush to start collecting money from that new construction-excise tax. Finding another $400,000 a year to help fund capital improvements (improvements that in some cases have long gone begging for adequate dough)? That's like hitting the lottery. It might be tougher to decide what's going to be on the menu at the next board retreat.

So it seems almost churlish on our part to advise a bit of caution to the board as it makes its decision on the matter. But here goes anyway:

Board members should remember this is money that's going to come from somebody's pocket, and that somebody didn't have any say in the matter.

The construction-excise tax was included in Oregon's Senate Bill 1036, which passed last September. It authorizes school districts to impose a fee on new construction for capital improvements. Money raised can be spent on property, construction, improvements, equipment and furnishings, debt service or any of the professional work needed to complete the projects. To get the money, the board needed to adopt a long-term facilities plan, which it did this week.

The tax can be up to $1 per square foot on new housing and 50 cents per square foot on new nonresidential structures. The law sets a cap of $25,000 per building permit.

So if you're building a house with 1,500 square feet, this adds $1,500 to your tab. Let's say for the sake of argument that your building costs are about $300,000; this works out to an additional tax of less than 1 percent. Seems reasonable; in most cases, it probably wouldn't be much of an issue.

But remember that Corvallis still is grappling with affordable-housing issues. We've heard the argument that a lack of affordable housing has forced young families out of the Corvallis market and into areas - hello, Albany! - where housing prices are a little less expensive.

In a school district that has closed some schools because of declining enrollment n declines that might have been caused at least in some small part by a lack of affordable housing - doesn't it strike anyone as ironic that we could make Corvallis housing a little less affordable so that we can pay for needed school construction?

Nevertheless, we're sympathetic to school officials who argue that the district faces some tough issues with the state of its current facilities: The district has identified more than $4.7 million in capital-improvement repair projects that need to be completed in the next two to 15 years. Money from the construction-excise tax will help pay for those, and could leave some money left over for other projects. Districts don't have a lot of other funding options for these projects.

So here's the bottom line, if we sat on the board: We'd confess to some real indigestion about cashing in on the construction-excise tax. Then we'd vote to do it, because the time is past when we could afford irony.

(Published March 13, 2008)