The Wisconsin-based firm Robert W. Baird and Co. will finance Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District’s $16 million partnership school-funding bond after school board members picked the group’s proposal out of seven total submissions Wednesday.
SOCSD trustees voted 4-0 to accept the group’s 16-year, 2.82 percent annual interest rate over Region’s Bank, which submitted the lowest interest rate of 2.56 percent, after bond attorney Jim Young advised the board that the low bid was non-conforming to bid specifications previously advertised by the school district.
Approximately $12.5 million of the issuance will be used in concert with state and Mississippi State University monetary and property pledges to construct a grades 6-7 partnership school on the university’s campus.
The remainder will go toward addressing districtwide infrastructure needs, including asphalting, roofing and air conditioning and heating projects.
Young said the district will close on the bond March 7, and SOCSD Superintendent Lewis Holloway said construction bids should be awarded by the end of April.
SOCSD is projected to open the school in July 2018, in time for the 2018-19 academic year.
“The board was extremely pleased with the number of proposals received and the competitive interest rates,” said SOCSD Board of Trustees President Jenny Turner. “We are excited that we have cleared another hurdle in the partnership school process.”
Moody’s Investors Service previously assigned an A2 rating to SOCSD’s bond in January, which designated the issuance as with an upper-medium grade and low credit risk.
“(The rating) is noteworthy, because that’s a good rating for a relatively new school district, and the bonds were insured,” Young said. “That speaks well for the school district to have.”
SOCSD’s general obligation bond is expected to be a tax-neutral issuance, as Holloway has previously said the district will utilize expiring millage for debt service.
The SOCSD-MSU partnership school was a primary recommendation of the committee that helped guide Starkville School District’s and Oktibbeha County School District’s state-mandated consolidation in 2015.
In July, when Holloway said the district had about 90 percent of the campus’ general design fleshed out, the school superintendent told SOCSD trustees the partnership school is expected to be about 142,000 square feet in size — or about 118 square feet per student.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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