Decorah school district gets great bids on bond refinancing

Decorah School district officials are very pleased with the bids they opened Monday morning on general obligation bonds.

The money raised by the bonds will be used for construction work at Decorah High School.  Bond consultants had originally predicted the school district would be charged a 4.21 percent interest rate.  But when bids were opened at 10:00 Monday morning, the low bid from United Missouri Bank of Kansas City was 2.78 percent. Bond counsel, in part, credited the the cooperation of Missouri Bank and Trust with Viking Bank of Decorah.

School officials had looked at issuing $5.78 million in bonds.  But because the interest rate was so low, the school district will  issue $6.3 million in bonds.  Payment on those bonds would be roughly equivalent to the projected payments on $5.78 million in bonds at 4.21 percent interest.  The bonds will be leveraged against PPEL (Physical Plant and Equipment Levy) funds.

Money "saved" by the lower rate will be about $577,000 and used to for renovation work as yet to be specifically determined.

The school district received eight bond bids--all of them lower than the 4.21 percent interest estimate.

The Decorah School Board approved the bid during their meeting Monday night.