The Rye City School District received notice today that it has retained its excellent AAA Bond Rating from Moody's Investors Services, which ultimately saves taxpayers significant dollars through lower borrowing finance costs.
The rating has been assigned to the District's $14.1 million in School District Serial Bonds for 2012, to refinance two outstanding debt issues for the same duration. In June, the Board of Education approved a resolution to refinance at lower interest rates, which results in savings of over $100,000 a year for the next 10 years in annual debt service payments. Collectively, the District expects to save in excess of $1 million.
"This rating was achieved through the District's careful fiscal planning," stated Superintendent of Schools Dr. Frank Alvarez. "It is positive for our District and our taxpayers, as the lower interest rates associated with this bond rating will result in greater savings."
In its report, Moody's noted that the ratings are reflective of the District's healthy financial position with ample reserves, sizeable and affluent tax base, and favorable debt profile. While the challenges of rising employee benefits costs and maintaining structurally balanced operations given revenue constraints under the tax cap were identified, Moody's anticipates that the District will maintain its strong financial position. The District's tax base of $5.7 billion is expected to remain stable.
"Ultimately, the efforts of the administration and the Board to forecast well and plan accordingly is working to the advantage of taxpayers," stated Board of Education President Laura Slack.
This is really good and we appreciate the district keeping it’s house in order.
There was however an illuminating expose’ out a few weeks ago on the whole municipal bond racket that kind of put the pieces together as to the sources of high flying lifestyles obtained off the backs of districts like ours. Here’s a pull quote and a link to the article:
“The banks achieved this gigantic rip-off by secretly colluding to rig the public bids on municipal bonds, a business worth $3.7 trillion. By conspiring to lower the interest rates that towns earn on these investments, the banks systematically stole from schools, hospitals, libraries and nursing homes – from “virtually every state, district and territory in the United States,” according to one settlement. And they did it so cleverly that the victims never even knew they were being ¬cheated. No thumbs were broken, and nobody ended up in a landfill in New Jersey, but money disappeared, lots and lots of it, and its manner of disappearance had a familiar name: organized crime.”
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-scam-wall-street-learned-from-the-mafia-20120620#ixzz1z1fqh7Qo