PGISD to save millions with bond refunds

TEXARKANA, Texas — The Pleasant Grove Independent School District Board of Trustees approved an order to refund multiple bond series at lower interest rates Thursday night, resulting in a potential savings of more than $2 million in interest.

They will look to save about $1.5 million from the issuance of its unlimited tax refunding bonds, taxable series 2020B, by levying a continuing direct annual ad valorem tax for the payment of the bonds.

The district’s unlimited tax refunding bonds — Series 2013, Series 2014 and Series 2015 — are nearing their callable date, meaning the district is able to refund them at a lower interest rate, resulting in this significant annual savings.

Since the series are being refunded in advance of their call date, the particular 2020B series is taxable. However, schools are exempt from taxes, so this has no bearing on PGISD, as they will still get Permanent School Fund approval from the State, as well as their AAA rating.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, tax exempt and taxable interest rates are nearly identical, and this is why PGISD can explore an advance refunding like they did in 2015.

The board did the same with unlimited tax refunding bonds, series 2020A.

The district’s current Unlimited Tax Refunding Bonds, Series 2010, have reached their callable date, allowing the district to refund these bonds at a lower interest rate than the current 2.0% to 4.0%.

This will result in a average annual savings of approximately $91,000 per year.

“What we can do with that is take that money and retire debt through it, not paying more interest,” Superintendent Chad Pirtle said. “It would go out over six years, so that’s over a half a million dollars in savings on the interest side that we would be able to save our taxpayers.”

More students in classrooms

In other news from the meeting, the board reported their lowest percentage of remote learners so far this school year, at approximately 11%, during its regular meeting.

During last month’s regular meeting, Pirtle announced that out of an enrollment of 2,240 stu

students, about 16.5% were remote learners. The month before that, it was at 20%.

Now down to 11%, Pirtle said this is an encouraging trend, because students learn more effectively in a school setting.

“We’re just continuing to decrease our percentage, and that’s a good thing to get those kids back into class,” he said. “As more kids are coming back, more are realizing they probably need to be in school. And we’re doing a really good job of taking care of our people at school. We have a good system in place.”

The board also heard updates on the construction of Margaret Fischer Davis Elementary School from Carl Baker, a Nabholz Construction representative.

Sod is being put down on the exterior of the building and the playground area, and painting is to begin soon. Concrete is being poured in between buildings on the East side, after it was initially too wet to do so, and concrete for sidewalks is being poured.

For the interior, the final clean for administration, pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and first grade will begin this weekend. And the gymnasium is almost fully complete.

“That gym looks awesome, let me tell you,” Baker said. “I’m kind of proud the way that scheme came out in there.”

Once all the furniture comes in and Nabholz gets their final punch list they can start the process of moving students and teachers in.