What is your view on this? Please see below. No internet sources.

Capital leases, under the old standards, were long-term liabilities. The new leases standards effectively have made almost all leases capital leases. The reason many government chose the leasing route under the old standards was because they could not borrow traditionally to acquire the assets they needed, perhaps because borrowing required voter approval, or because they were close to their statutory borrowing limit. With a lease, they could structure the terms to qualify as operating leases and, therefore, not have to report a long-term liability. Even when they had capital leases, those liabilities generally were not included in the calculation of borrowing limits.

One of the reasons why leasing might be better than borrowing to own is that a government does not want to incur the costs of ownership, such as storage, maintenance, and disposal. Some school districts, for instance, own their bus fleet, but others lease the buses and the lessor also maintains and repairs the buses. When a bus becomes too old for appropriate use, the lessor replaces the bus. The district does not have to employ a staff to take care of purchasing, maintaining, replacing, and so on. I think this is relevant for many equipment leases, such as printers, copiers, and other office equipment.