After the sale of bonds was completed on Tuesday, September 21, Xenia Community Schools taxpayers were saved $19,881,827 and eight years on the bond approved by voters this past May to replace Warner Middle School.
“Often, cost-saving can mean making hard decisions, and finding a true ‘win-win’ scenario is rare,” said Carolyn Huber, Treasurer. “But in this case, it was a matter of being financially savvy as a district, and taking advantage of the incredibly low interest rates to save our taxpayers money — while still bringing in the revenue needed to complete the project.”
The bond issue was approved by voters in May based on an estimate of 37 years at 4.25% interest. However, lower than expected interest rates allowed the district to shorten the term to 29 years at 2.32% interest. Ultimately, this will result in collecting $19,881,827 less in taxes from residents over the life of the bond than what was approved by voters on the May ballot.
“It is always our goal to be good stewards of the resources that we have, and we want to continually earn the trust of our community by finding cost-saving measures without impacting student learning,” said Dr. Gabriel Lofton, Superintendent. “The fact that in this case we will be able to save the community funds while still replacing Warner Middle School with the facility that we need to serve our students well for years to come is truly exciting.”
The decision to take advantage of low interest rates to structure the bonds in this fashion was discussed publicly during the August 2021 regular meeting of the Board of Education. The bond sale was priced on August 31 and closed on September 21, 2021. The sale was completed with the assistance of Rockmill Financial Consulting, LLC.
“It is not often true that you can have your cake and eat it too — but in this case, we might have managed to do just that,” Huber added.