Lt Governor Healy was in Lowell yesterday. Among other things, she talked about Governor Romney's plan to eliminate the backlog that exists in school building projects. With last year's fiscal crisis, the state declared a moratorium on new school building projects. Until now, the money to build new schools was raised through bonds that were to be repaid in 20 years. Romney's plan would double the period for paying of the debt (40 years). This would reduce the annual payment to a manageable amount and would get all of the schools currently on the list built. A hidden benefit (as someone explained to me) of this plan is that many construction jobs that were created for the Big Dig could be shifted to this project thereby keeping people employed. The downside is that the state wouldn't be able to help with the construction of additional new schools for the next 40 years. Nevertheless, this is a proposal that should be examined closely by the state legislature.