Burden on borrowing

Over the past few weeks, Florida school districts have publicly focused their attention on how to deal with budget cuts in terms of layoffs, program reductions and the like. Behind the scenes, they're also keeping a close eye on how the state's many changes to school funding - real, proposed and expected - will have on their ability to remain active in the bond market.

It's a critical piece, especially for districts that have expansion plans, but also for those that already are in the market for support of past capital projects. The Legislature's decision to reduce district's local tax rate for capital projects by .25 mills, for instance, could push many districts beyond their borrowing limits.

Financial advisors have told the Gradebook that bond ratings agencies see the tax change as just one of many factors depressing the Florida school bond market, possibly leading to downgrades, reduced borrowing capacity and perhaps even downright rejection of some bond sales. Already some districts, including fast growing Pasco County, have seen the market send back some bonds because of market conditions.

"This is a major concern for us," Pasco superintendent Heather Fiorentino told the Gradebook, adding that her finance department is exploring the issue thoroughly, as the district has continued plans to build more schools.

Many of these issues are super complicated. The Bond Buyer reports with fine detail this morning about the current situation, noting at least 14 districts had sold more than $2.34-billion in debt by this time last year. This year, six districts have sold $251.5-million.

Comments

[terminator]

5:26
Contrary to guys like you (brown nosers and yes men), termie actually has a set and doesn't always parrot the company line.
While generally supportive of most of FEA's agenda, I've never been one of the "give us more money" guys.
My interest is always with the teachers and ensuring the teachers get the lion's share of whatever money is coming from Tally.
You obviously are quite content with the status quo which has mired Florida schools at the bottom nationally even though many large school districts employ hundreds of useless administrators who are "friends of friends".
Your days are numbered. Like I said in my earlier post this was just year one in the bloodletting that will continue next year and the next.
A big shout out to Lucy for her double dipper series. It has already spurred reform in many districts who are finally putting the deadwood out to pasture.
Could you be one of those my friend?

Please, termie, you can't even do a good job of speaking for your client as you constantly disagree with them. Don't even start trying to tell me what I wanted and who I told that to during session. It is just one more thing that you are dead WRONG about. And, talking about zero credibility . . . tell me again how Marco isn't going to cave on the property tax issue. I love that one.

[terminator]

it's easy to go back and recreate the storyline there isn't school board hacks!
like the old saying goes...."be careful of what you ask for cause you just might get it".
now it's pin the blame on the legislature? don't think so guys.
this is why you're in the pickle you're in and guess what...the financial straightjacket is going to get tighter next year.
you guys have ZERO credibility in Tallahassee.
now bend over and get ready!

There was never a .25 mill transfer to support. The Senate proposed stealing .2 mill while the House did not have this in their offer, but the final deal included .25 mill as part of the allocations approved to being conference. The issue was decided by leadership before it could be debated. But then again, Termie was there . . .

Het, 9:42 p.m.,

Termie was there. He knows everything. He has over 3 decades of being there while things were going wrong (I wonder what the common thread of his experiences might be other then himself/herself).

I know that the Senate lied about what was requested and what they delivered. The only truth that they offered was when they said that the House (Rubio) would fold like a house of cards. Of course, they told me the same thing about the property tax special session, but we all know that Termie knew that Marco would never approve of the Senate proposal . . . no wait . . . he did!

Not all school districts supported the .25 RLE. In fact I know ours protested, citing this very issue. The Legislature did what they wanted because it helped them look like they weren't cutting education as deeply.

[terminator]

these friggin stupid public school district lobbyists should be lined up in a firing squad and summarily executed!
These chuckleheads begged the legislators to give them the .25 mills so they could shift the money to operational giving them the "flexibility" they wanted and a few more dollars in a down budget year.
(I was there and personally witnessed it).
Now they want to cry and whine about their bonding capacity? Give me a freakin break you morons!

[Chris W]

You know, we *could* stop building big-box schools and leverage vacant merchant space that already exists, or we could make more use of Florida Virtual Schools than we currently do.

We could also try building smaller neighborhood schools (or even rehab houses and equip them for distance learning) and maybe make those disruptive boundary changes a thing of the past.

There are lots of cost-cutting measures the school district could put in place. One thing that comes to mind is something like Textbooks on Demand (http://www.central.com.ph/textbooks/textbooks.html).
No inventory to track, easy to update, and the major issues would be keeping the material up to date and standard for the state's schools. (It occurs to me as I type this that we could hire textbook authors to implement good books for our state standards and publish them on demand, which would be a good use of the time and person-power of the DOE in Tallahassee.)