School Refinances Bond Issues For Savings

Lincoln School Board member Tera Thompson has resigned her Zone 1 position because of personal reasons, according to Superintendent Mary Ann Spears. Thompson will have to be replaced by someone who lives in Zone 1, and the board is required to fill the vacancy within 30 days. Thompson was appointed to the position in October 2017, and then ran for office in May 2018. Board members serve five-year terms.

LINCOLN — Lincoln Consolidated School District recently refinanced two bond issues and the School Board received good news about the sales at its Nov. 16 meeting.

Dan Lovelady with First Security Beardsley said both sales, called savings refunding bond issues, were held Nov. 3.

Lovelady explained that Lincoln is taking existing bond issues with a higher interest rate and re-issuing them at a lower interest rate to save money in interest

costs. Lovelady said the interest rates came back lower than projected.

FHN Financial Capital Markets submitted the lowest interest rate for both issues. The Citizens Bank of Batesville will serve as trustee for both bond issues.

For the first sale, Lincoln issued about $2.8 million in

refunding bonds for a true interest cost of 1.188790%. The school’s net savings over the remaining life of the bond issue will be $188,422, Lovelady said.

Most of the district’s savings will occur on Feb. 1, 2021. Lovelady said the savings will be almost $135,000 on that day, and the rest will occur over the life of the debt.

For the second sale, Lincoln issued $1,590,000 in refunding bonds. The district received three bids, with FHN Financial submitting the lowest true interest cost, a rate of 1.339%, to repay the debt.

The district will save $187,123 in interest costs over the life of the issue, with about $ 94,000 in savings occurring in February 2021 and $32,500 of savings occurring in February 2022. The rest of the savings will come over the life of the bond issue.