Treasurer for county gives bond issue update

HOT SPRINGS — Garland County Treasurer Tim Stockdale said proceeds from the $54.6 million road bond issue that voters approved in a June 2016 special election recently netted the county $234,000 in interest on a $15 million certificate of deposit that matured last month.

The county has since committed $5 million of the principal to partner with the state on project development for the more than 5-mile extension of the King Expressway from the U.S. 70 east interchange to the junction of Arkansas 5 and 7.

Stockdale said the county’s depository board reinvested the $10 million balance last month in a Relyance Bank money market fund. The 2.4 percent interest rate will net $240,000 for the county at maturity, the treasury files show.

The county purchased a $25 million Citizens Bank CD last year, Stockdale said, explaining that it has a 1.9 percent interest rate and will mature in April.

He said the county may be able to reinvest the principal in another short-term debt instrument before the state requests the balance of the county’s $30 million share for the expressway project.

Simmons First Trust Co. holds the roughly $10.6 million balance of the proceeds, Stockdale said. It’s part of the finance team the county organized to market the bonds in October 2016. As trustee, it pays bondholders semiannual interest from collections of the five-eighths percent sales tax pledged to the debt.

Voters approved the bond issue and sales tax that secures it in a special election, committing taxpayers to retire $59,810,112 in principal and interest over the life of the bond issue, the underwriter said after the sale. The projected payoff is May 2023.