Intel Barters High School For Revenue Bonds Company Would Lease Building To School District For $1 A Year

The man in a business suit stood at the front of a school gymnasium crowded with seventh-graders and held up a tiny Pentium computer chip, noting it can do 100 million calculations a second.

But Intel executive Bill Sheppard said it could do more - much more - than that: “It can build you a high school.”

The 600 or so members of Rio Rancho’s Class of 2000 erupted in ear-splitting cheers.

“I hope it gets built by our freshman year,” 13-year-old Rendie Baker said at Lincoln Middle School. “It’s a real relief to finally know what high school we’re going to be going to.”

Intel Corp. announced last week it will help finance Rio Rancho’s first high school if the Sandoval County Commission, as expected, approves the computer chip maker’s request for $8 billion in industrial revenue bonds, mainly for a plant expansion here.

The company will pay at least $28.5 million for the school. No firm architectural plan has been presented, so there is no estimate of the final cost.

The high school would be leased to the district for $1 a year for the 30-year life of the bonds Intel is seeking. The district then would have the option of buying the building, which is on land donated by a developer.

Sheppard said the plan is the first of its kind in the nation. It also comes at a time when large companies are coming under political attack for accepting “corporate welfare” and not investing enough of their profits back into the communities where they operate.

Intel, with 4,200 employees, is one of New Mexico’s largest businesses.

Rio Rancho, with about 47,000 residents, is one of the state’s fastest-growing communities. The school district, serving up to eighth grade, was created a year ago from parts of the Albuquerque and Jemez Valley districts. Rio Rancho high schoolers still attend class at least seven miles away in those districts.

Industrial revenue bonds, used for economic development by many states, are authorized to finance industrial improvements. Intel, not taxpapers, would be responsible for paying them off.

Under New Mexico law, industries are excused from property taxes and some other taxes until the bonds are repaid.

Rio Rancho School Superintendent Sue Cleveland said the new school would handle about 2,400 students. She said $28 million won’t take care of everything a high school needs, and the community would have to come up with money for the finishing touches Intel won’t finance.

Cleveland said the school should be open for the 1996-97 school year, about half the time it usually takes to build a high school.

Rendie’s class will be freshmen that year.

“We’ll be the first people to use anything” at the new school, she said.

Several people, tongue in cheek, suggested possible school nicknames: the Chips, the Pentiums or the Chipmunks.

“We’ll have that symbol on the sign outside, you know, that round one: ‘Intel Inside,’ ” joked Rio Rancho School Board president Karla Walker.