State Legislatures Magazine: July/August 2000
Editor's Note: This article appeared in the July/August 2000 issue of NCSL's magazine, State Legislatures. To order copies or to subscribe, contact the marketing department at (303) 364-7700.
On First Reading
Teachers' Low-Interest Loans
Promote "Smart Growth"
If they promise to stay on the job for at least three years, teachers can get low-interest home mortgages, courtesy of the Maryland General Assembly. Although school districts sometimes offer signing bonuses to teachers, Maryland is the first to provide low-interest home loans as an apple polisher.
In passing S 206, the legislature found a perk to help recruit and retain qualified teachers, especially in areas where the state is attempting to promote smart growth management. State bonds will be sold to pay for 5 percent home loans for teachers. Instructors whose household incomes are less than $91,000 a year and who are planning to purchase homes worth $180,000 or less will qualify for the mortgages. The program will extend eligibility to all teachers who have been hired within the past five years.
The loans are limited to teachers who buy homes in "smart growth" areas-the urban and older suburban areas that Maryland is attempting to promote as a means of fighting urban sprawl. "This [bill] goes to the heart of the smart growth movements ... to shift housing and development to those areas that already have development and the water and sewage infrastructure," said Senator Paul G. Pinsky. "Smart growth has to be integrated with everything we do here, or it's not going to be a policy at all." The areas targeted for smart growth also have the greatest need for teachers because they are the most economically distressed school districts, Pinsky says.
.©2000, National Conference of State Legislatures. All rights reserved.
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