On Tuesday at 5:16 p.m. I received an email from Scott Shearer, Sr. Managing Consultant
Public Financial Management, Inc, who forwarded the note I had sent to the NASD.
A little email and phone tag on Wednesday, hopefully we'll catch up today and I'll have some answers regarding Nazareth's situation.
Public Financial Management advises 27% of the school districts in PA, including Nazareth according to their web site (visit it here) and their approach is:
Among the strategies that we have used are interim financings via general obligation notes and bond pool borrowings, fixed and variable rate structures, financings through the State Public School Building Authority, and Qualified Zone Academy Bonds.
6 comments:
Once again I have to ask, why isn't there someone in the district office that can answer this very basic question? The other districts around us were able to.
Could it be that we don't have a single person that actually knows the answer beyond an outside consultant?
Am I the only one that sees a problem with this?
Using a company like this whose employees have significant resources and more knowledge is much better than hiring a person as an employee of the school district.
Do you need to understand and have over-sight, absolutely, do you need a new six figure administrative hire, I'd suggest not.
I'd think they are letting their expert answer instead of possibly misrepresenting what we've done by accident.
I wouldn't say "accident".
I was present for at least 3-4 meetings where Mr. Shearer (and others) of PFM were there to discuss bond swaps and other debt related financial matters. Other than Mr. Maher, there really wasn't any questions. Makes you wonder if they understood everything that was going on.
When you do get in touch with Mr. Shearer, perhaps you could find out whether NASD has secured the final $24M of the school building project. If we have not, try and find out (1) what rate we're now being offered and (2) how has that rate changed over the past couple months.
I'm just wondering....
BASD has become part of a federal SEC investigation around bond swaps per an MCall article.
One has to wonder if we are in for the same, but we have no idea at this point because no one has told us how good or bad our position is.
If we are pulled into an investigation, I guess we can look forward to additional legal expenses.
Ka-ching, that cash register keeps on a ringing for our tax dollars.
Looks like Monday's meeting will have a presentation from PFM. See agenda.
It's a bit confusing, because it looks like we are taking on an additional $31M in new bonds. I know that approximately $22-24M of this is for the new school project, road and weight room expansion. The additional money may be to get out of whatever swaps we had entered into? I guess we won't know until Monday.
On another note, notice the additional $80K in change orders?
Ok, perhaps I am out of the loop but what is the 1.2M renovation for the High School and Tea Room? Just wondering...
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