Rancho Santa Fe residents may see lower property tax bills next year due to the Rancho Santa Fe School District’s bond refinancing efforts.
Since January, the board has been exploring the opportunity to refinance the district’s outstanding 2015 general obligation bonds and generate savings of about $1.1 million across the community. Refinancing the old bonds with new bonds would lower future debt service payments on the bonds which are paid by property tax, therefore lowering that line item on homeowners’ property tax bills, according to Lawrence Chan, the district’s bond and disclosure counsel.
On March 4, the board gave formal approval to move forward with the refinancing of the district general obligation refunding bonds, in a principal amount not to exceed $19,795,000.
“This is strictly a refunding, there are no bond proceeds here being used for new projects,” said Chan, from the firm of Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth.
As board President Jee Manghani said, the board’s approval doesn’t guarantee the transaction will be completed as the district will only move forward if the interest rates are favorable: “We wouldn’t want to land at a higher interest rate, we want to land at a lower interest rate that would save our community property tax money,” Manghani said.
Chan said the next steps in the process would involve pricing the bonds in late April and assuming the interest rates are favorable, the transaction would close in early May. When the transaction closes, the refunding bond proceeds will be set aside in an escrow and used to pay off the bonds in August. If all that goes according to plan, he said the property tax bills next year would see a decrease in the RSF School District line item.
