[HooverDam]

http://www.azbex.com/archives/view/a...concerns_loom/

ASU Payson Scores Key Victory, State Budget Concerns Loom
by Pete Aleshire on Apr, 01 2011

The House Education Committee Friday unanimously approved SB 1997, which has already won approval from the full Senate.

The new law would give the Arizona Board of Regents the legal ability to form a “separate legal entity” (SLE) — the key to Payson’s effort to build and operate a college campus for 1,000 to 6,000 students.

SB 1997 holds the key to the complicated framework for financing and operating the campus.

Evans and other backers of the project have been working for more than two years to come up with a way for Payson to build the campus and related facilities, like a convention hotel and a research park. Payson officials had to find a way to take advantage of up to $500 million in donations and promised loans, while protecting Payson taxpayers from liability and not drawing on ASU’s nearly exhausted capacity to use bonds to finance the campus.

The plan that emerged relies on setting up the campus and related facilities as a world unto itself, operating as a Separate Legal Entity (SLE). The town council would serve as the board for a newly created district for the roughly 300-acre campus. The SLE could buy land, levy taxes, build facilities and enter into contracts — but just within that little world.

This seems like good news, new higher education options across are state are definitely needed and a good thing. While I'd rather Payson have their own independent college/university, perhaps a ASU-Payson is just a bridge to that as an end goal.