Decatur School District 61 Finance Committee met Sept. 4.
Here is the minutes provided by the committee:
Members Present: Beth Nolan; Paul Fregeau; Brian Hodges; Fred Bouchard; Todd Covault; and Bobbi Williams
Others Present: Deanne Hillman; Rhonda Thornton; Courtney Carson; Sherri Perkins; Dan Oakes; Kay Geskey; Charlotte Thompson; Joshua Peters; Kendall Briscoe; and Anne Noble (Stifel)
There was no public participation and the minutes from the August 7, 2018 meeting were approved by acclamation.
Financing the Facility Plan
Anne Noble, Managing Director with Stifel (Bond Counsel), presented on Bond Financing
Quite a few financing options available in Illinois
o Easiest is Health Life Safety (HLS) Bonds
Improvements mandated by the State
Authority to issue bonds for any projects that the State has approved assuming District has debt capacity
Legal borrowing capacity = $86 million
Tax Caps have not been imposed
Working Cash (WC) Fund Bond
o Place in working cash fund and transfer to any operating fund in need
o Can use for capital projects (transfer to capital projects fund)
o More restrictive
o Currently $8.7 million borrowing capacity
Funding Bond
o More complicated and expensive
o Requires a 30 day back door petition period (unlike HLS bond)
o More than 10% of registered voters sign petition; place on ballot for public vote ballot; and passes with simple majority
All bonding options have implications to tax rate
Question asked regarding November vs. April election difference for success of referendum
o Not a lot of difference in success rate
o If you look at bigger school districts there is a higher ratio of passage on November cycles due to better voter turn out
Outstanding debt was reviewed
Borrowing Capacity was reviewed
Two Scenarios were presented
o 47 million and 43 million new money
3 Year Phase In
Executive Cabinet (EC) presented a Facilities Planning Document
o Three options reviewed
Option 1 - $35.3 million
Option 2 - $39.3 million
Option 3 - $26.0 million
Board members recommended that EC not put constraints on options and come up with a dream plan
o The committee agreed to dismiss option 3 and focus on options 1 and 2
EC will have continued discussion regarding the Facilities Planning Document and present for recommendation as one big plan
Johns Hill Transportation data was provided per Members request
Meeting adjourned at 4:26 PM
https://www.dps61.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=20580&dataid=21776&FileName=APPROVED%20Minutes%2009.04.18.pdf
Alerts Sign-up