The Warren County R-III School District received encouraging news regarding its investment toward the $10 million Proposition A project passed during the April 5 election.Brad Wegman from the L.J. Hart and Company reported that a positive trend in the market should save the district around $886,831 in interest rates on its borrowed funds for Series 2016 bonds.“The main benchmark to examine is the 10-year U.S. Treasury note,” said Wegman. “When we first examined this back in November, that benchmark rate was at about 2.35 percent. Recently, it came down to 1.75 percent.”Superintendent Jim Chandler says this is a result of fortunate timing as the district looks to have the money in place by June 16 to move forward with the ground breaking. The net amount deposited into the district’s fund would be $10,874,766.“Over the lifetime of the bond, we’re going to end up paying quite a bit less interest,” said Chandler. “The way the rates played out when we sold our bonds from when they were projected resulted in a positive outcome for us.”Wegman said the debt service schedule was updated to reflect the changes over the duration of repayment. He cited that the projected interest rate is now 4.01 percent, whereas in November that rate was half a percent higher.“With a financing of this size, the impact half a percent drop in interest rates has is a very large one,” he said. “It’s a great time to be borrowing money, because the cost of borrowing is so cheap.”The bonds will still be issued at a premium.“The district is in a very healthy position,” said Wegman. “The revenue derived from the 61-cent tax levy is more than adequate to fund the payments on these new Series 2016 bonds.”Chandler said the difference in interest may bode well for potential future projects getting an earlier look than anticipated.“We try to stay conservative,” he said. “That will allow us to look at doing another project sooner because we are paying less interest. We might be able to look at issuing another bond in five years. We do things based on projections, and in this case it broke in a positive way for us.”Warren County R-III School District