E’town schools save $1.5M by refinancing bonds

Eatontown — The Eatontown Board of Education has announced it has refinanced its outstanding long-term debt, realizing significant savings for the taxpayers of the Eatontown. 
On December 10, 2014, the Board refinanced its $21,150,000 in bonds which enabled the Board to achieve a 2.796 percent cost of funds for its 18 year financing.  Through this process, the Eatontown Board of Education achieved budgetary savings of $1,916,673 and present value savings of $1,542,498, or 7.244 percent of the refunded par amount.

This was accomplished without extending the time for retirement of the debt.
The Eatontown Board of Education partnered with seven other Monmouth County municipalities to finance its Series 2006 Bonds for savings through the Monmouth County Improvement Authority (MCIA).  It is the first time a school district has participated in a pooled financing of this nature.

Since 1993, the Monmouth County Improvement Authority has offered governmental pooled loan programs. The refunding of the Eatontown Board of Education bonds benefitted from the pooled structure of the MCIA bonds through the sharing of costs of issuance and the additional investor demand generated by the larger par sizes in each maturity.

In addition, the flexibility of the negotiated sale process allows the bonds to be resold at lower yields reflecting greater investor demand.  Finally, the participation of the Monmouth County Freeholders, who guaranty the bond, extends its credit rating to the participating local units realizing a saving that is ordinarily not achievable by those units alone.

This financial arrangement demonstrated the successful cooperation of the county and local governing bodies working together in the interest of the taxpayers.  Other municipalities who were part of the financing process with the Eatontown BOE included the Borough of Avon, Borough of Bradley Beach, Borough of Eatontown, Borough of Keyport, Township of Neptune, Borough of Oceanport, and Borough of Tinton Falls.