State Treasurer Denise Nappier, who started out the week watching Moody’s Investment Services place a “negative” outlook on the state’s Aa3 rating, had some good news this morning for the State Bond Commission: major savings in a more-than-half-billion-dollar bond issue this week.
“We’re going to end the week with very good news,” she said detailing Wednesday’s bond sale of $550 million for transportation improvements, including $500 million in new money. “It was historic because it was the lowest cost, borrowing cost, in state history, for this program. We also did a $50-million refunding and saved the state $3.5 million on the refunding. The savings on the $500-million bond issue is roughly $18.4 million and that is the result of having the taxable portion be issued under the Build America Bonds. This is the federal stimulus legislation. This is the first time we’ve done that and there was a 35-percent subsidy on the interest cost. Not withstanding the subsidy, we still would have had the lowest true interest costs in state history.”
