Turlock Unified bond bargain could save $21M

Turlock Unified says its initial bond sale went better than expected, adding an estimated $1 million to the building budget and chopping a projected $20.8 million off the taxpayers’ bill compared to initial estimates.

The expected savings include lower cost projections from this sale and future sales planned for 2019 and 2021. To put the savings in perspective, at this better-than-expected price the total $88.8 million bonds authorized by Measures N and O would cost, including interest, around $154 million over 30 years instead of $175 million.

This week’s announcement was about the first sale of bonds, $27.2 million, completed April 19. More than $61 million remains to be sold from the two measures. Spending on campus repairs and improvements will begin shortly.

In this first pass, the district sold $12.5 million in bonds from Measure N to pay for fixes and upgrades at its elementary and junior high campuses. Including interest and issuance costs, Turlock Unified School District property owners will pay $21.7 million through 2046 for those bonds, according to bond sale documents on the Electronic Municipal Market Access website.

The district also sold $14.7 million in bonds from Measure O to raise capital funds for high schools. Measure O got the thumbs up from Turlock voters and those in the Chatom and Keyes elementary school districts, which feed into Turlock’s high schools. Including interest, property owners from this larger area will pay a collective $25.4 million in extra property taxes through 2047 for this sale, according to bond sale documents.

Both are in addition to a total of $42.5 million owed for previous Turlock bond sales being paid off by district property owners through 2033.

This story was originally published May 18, 2017 at 4:32 PM with the headline "Turlock Unified bond bargain could save $21M."