The Greene County School Board recently approved selling bonds for its solar project.

At a special meeting on July 31st, the Board approved to sell $5,165,000 of general obligation capital loan notes from its Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL) funds to The Baker Group with a 3.32 percent interest rate. Piper Sandler is the financial entity the Board hired to assist with the bidding process to sell the initial bonds, so that the school district is allowed to receive the money for the project. 

Matt Gillaspie with Piper Sandler said at the special meeting that the school district initial market rating from Standards and Poor (S&P) was an “A++” but after the investment bidders used insurance companies, the district’s rating improved by two categories, up to an “AA,” and they had a total of five bidders, including the winning bid. Superintendent Brett Abbotts said this was the second route the Board took to sell these same bonds, after the first attempt of not using an S&P rating had higher bids and interest rates.

“That kind of one of the risks you run is that your interest rates could be a little higher than you want. But then if you go through the backing of your Standards and Poor, you get your rating and it’s a good one, which most schools are. It allows us to cast a wider net and hopefully get a lot more competition in terms of the rates and some of the criteria that come along with those loans.”    

Gillaspie pointed out to the Board that he believes because Home State Bank was involved with the winning lender, it helped lower the fees and interest rate. He noted that the payments on the ten year loan that the Board would be expected to make on an annual basis ranges between $682,000-$685,000. 

 

Abbotts added the next major items for the project is for the Board to select a construction manager at-risk and then the designer and builder of the solar panels. He hopes to start construction sometime next year.