Saratoga News

Nearly all of Measure D bonds sold, district says

By Michelle Alaimo

The Saratoga Union School District board has sold $30 million of the $40 million in general-obligation school-facilities bonds authorized under Measure D, which passed in June 1997.

The district used PaineWebber as its selling agent, and Ellen Tipton, business manager for the SUSD, said many businesses and individuals bought the bonds at a weighted average interest rate of 5.327 percent. Timothy Carty, vice president of PaineWebber, said the weighted average is the average of all the interest rates over the 25-year life of the bonds.

He added that the bonds received a rating of AA- by Standard and Poor's and Aa3 by Moody's, which is a very high rating for a school district in California.

"The rating placed [the SUSD] among a select few in the state," Carty said. He attributed the high ratings to a number of factors, including the strength of the community and high property values.

The cost of repaying the $30 million in bonds sold will come to some $61 million over 25 years, Carty said. He added that this is standard.

Measure D allows the SUSD to use the money only for renovations, repairs and new construction for the schools. The bonds will be paid back by adding nearly $40 in tax per $100,000 of a home's assessed value, Carty said. Before the bond measure was passed in June, Saratoga was the only West Valley city to not have a bond or parcel tax for its schools.

Some construction has already been completed using Measure D funds. Tipton said that over the summer, some bathrooms at Redwood Middle School were remodeled. Other tentative future projects for Redwood include remodeling the office and adding a new two-story building, Tipton said. She added there has been no major construction within the district within the last 20 years.

She said major construction in the district's four schools--Argonaut, Foothill and Saratoga elementary schools and Redwood Middle School--will not begin until July 1999.

The district is currently meeting with parents and faculty to see what the needs are at each school and how far the funding will go. Tipton said the district hopes to have a general plan in place by the end of February 1998. The SUSD's current facilities master plan approved in January recommends improvements such as the removal or abatement of asbestos; seismic upgrades; the addition of restrooms; repairing cracked and unsafe asphalt; and improving drainage of the fields at all the schools. The construction of additional classrooms was also recommended to handle a projected 25 percent increase in enrollment within the next 10 years.

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