SBCCD to Deliver $10,700,000 in Savings to Local Taxpayers

The San Bernardino Community College District (SBCCD) is proud to announce its most recent initiative to benefit its students and community members. This initiative will deliver bond interest rate savings to local taxpayers from the refinancing of a portion of the District’s Election of 2002 Measure P Bonds. Under the leadership of the Board of Trustees, the district administration chose to take advantage of historically low interest rates to refinance bonds from its Measure P authorizations without extending the term of those bonds. The district was able to reduce the interest rates on the prior bonds from an average of 5.00% to 3.54%, reducing the community’s tax bill by a total of $10,705,677.64 over the life of the refinancing. John Longville, President of the SBCCD Board of Trustees, said, “The SBCCD Board of Trustees and District administration recognize their fiscal and fiduciary responsibility to save our community money and are pleased to be able to save the taxpayers such a substantial amount over the life of these bonds.” Chancellor Bruce Baron said, “We will continue to monitor the financial markets in order to be able to take advantage of any similar opportunities that might become available. We are particularly proud of the fact that such recognized credit rating services as Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s gave our District high ratings for consistently good financial practices.” The district’s ability to obtain these low interest rates and achieve these high savings levels was boosted by its credit ratings of “Aa2” assigned by Moody’s Investors Service and “AA-” from Standard and Poor’s, which reflect the district’s large property tax base, stable finances and strong reserves, and good financial management policies. These strong ratings allowed the district to attract a great deal of investor interest and obtain excellent interest rates on the date of bond refinancing. While the district will not receive any part of the savings, the District Board and District Administration pursued this opportunity strictly on behalf of local taxpayers as part of their continued support for the education of the students of its community. This was the second time that the San Bernardino Community College District took the initiative to deliver savings to its community. In April 2013, the district did a similar bond refinancing and saved local taxpayers a total of $11.5 million.