MISSOULA - The Missoula County Public Schools (MCPS) Board of Trustees authorized the sale of bonds to fund school improvements under the Smart Schools 2020 plan Dec. 8, 2015. Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016, the District executed the first sale of $51.6 million in bonds for the elementary district and $22.7 million for the high school district.
In a presentation made by Aaron Rudio of D.A. Davidson during Tuesday night’s board meeting, the board learned that interest rates are currently at the lowest point seen in the past five months. The District anticipated securing an interest rate of 3.75 percent and in the end was able to secure rates in the 2.6 - 2.7 percent range. As a result, MCPS will save a total of $9.4 million in interest payments over the 20-year term of the first sale of bonds - $6.5 million in savings for the elementary district and $2.9 million in savings for the high school district. Voters will see the tax increase for this bond sale on their November 2016 tax statements.
In November 2015, voters approved a total of $88 million in bonds for the elementary district and $70 million in bonds for the high school district. MCPS anticipates selling the remainder of bonds approved by voters in the 2017-18 school year. If interest rates go up by that time, the total cost to the taxpayer may level out over the life of the entire project.
“The total of the project budgets remain as we identified them in the information shared with voters before the election,” said MCPS Superintendent Mark Thane. “We are realizing the benefit of lower than projected interest rates for our debt service on this first sale of bonds. These favorable rates result in savings to the Missoula taxpayers.”
In the future, the District will release an updated taxpayer impact statement that reflects these savings and publish it on the District website at http://www.mcpsmt.org.
For additional information, contact Hatton Littman at 406-239-9066 or via email at hlittman@mcps.k12.mt.us.
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