Prairie Grove Board OKs Refinance

New Member Attends Meeting

PRAIRIE GROVE —The Prairie Grove School Board approved the refinance and sale of $9 million in construction bonds at its Oct. 22 meeting.

The proceeds will be used to build a primary wing onto the Intermediate School, a storm shelter and a new high school basketball gym.

The school district received two bids for the bonds and the board voted to accept a low bid of 4.12 percent from Ross, Sinclaire & Associates. First Arkansas Bank and Trust in Jacksonville will serve as bond trustee. The school will close on the bond issue on Nov. 7.

Dan Lovelady with First Security Beardsley Public Finance said $1.9 million of the proceeds will be used to pay off an Oct. 1, 2010, bond issue. This will leave the school district with $7 million for its construction fund, after fees and other associated costs.

Lovelady told the board that a year ago, interest rates were around 2- 3 percent but he expected the rates would be closer to 4 percent this time.

“Rates have been really volatile lately,” Lovelady said.

Even though the school district only received two bids, Lovelady said both were close and within the range of what the firm was expecting.

Prairie Grove will refinance and sell additional bonds in the spring and the net proceeds from the spring bond issue will be $5.6 million for the construction fund.

The fall and spring bond sales will provide $ 12.5 million for the new construction.

In other action, the board reorganized its slate of officers for the year and it didn’t take long for the newest member of the Prairie Grove School Board to get involved.

Bart Orr was elected to the school board in September, attended his first meet- ing Oct. 22 and was elected board secretary the same night. Board member Eric Walker made the motion to nominate Orr for the position.

The board elected J.C. Dobbs as president and Jerry Coyle as vice president.

Superintendent Allen Williams joked that he had planned to welcome Orr to his first meeting but the other board members apparently decided on another way to welcome him to the panel.

Orr’s first order of business as board secretary was to sign all the papers associated with the sale of the construction bonds.