The first sale of bonds that will fund Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School’s $70 million facilities project is now taking place.

On Tuesday, the BBCHS District 307 Board OK’d a resolution to issue about $9.95 million in general obligation school bonds.

The sale is slated to close Oct. 30.

Proceeds from the bond sales will pay for capital projects set forth in the referendum approved by voters in the Nov. 5, 2024, election.

The levy of a direct annual tax will pay the principal and interest on the bonds. In total, taxpayers will be responsible for $62 million, while the district is contributing $8 million from its reserves to the project.

The sale of the bonds was authorized to Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. Inc.

This move was the first leg of bond sales to pay for the Building Better Facilities project.

The remaining sales are slated to take place in February.

Ramie Kolitwenzew, chief school business official, noted that the district has maintained an AA- bond rating, the same rating from its last bond issuance.

The higher rating means the district can borrow at a lower interest rate because of the lower investment risk.

Kevin Heid of Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. said that the bond sales are being divided into two parts to minimize interest costs.

When issuing less than $10 million in bonds in a calendar year, banks can purchase those bonds and hold them at a better tax incentive, he said.

“A lot of times, districts will do what we call a calendar-year straddle, where we are doing part of the issue in one year to generate bank qualification, then the bulk of it in the next year,” Heid said. “That’s really what we’ve talked all along about doing because it should result in lower overall interest expense.”

Heid said the current market is showing that the long end of the bond maturity structure will result in the most benefits for bank qualification, meaning more years until bond maturity.

The bonds will mature in 2040 and 2041, he said.

“We structured that intentionally because that’s where the best benefit will be,” Heid said.

Between the two bond issues, the district will have a 51.7-cent tax rate, exactly 46 cents more than its current rate of 5.7 cents, Heid said.

The 46-cent rate increase is what was committed to at the time of the referendum.

A calculator is available on the district’s website that shows the impact of the tax on homeowners.

For example, the owner of a $100,000 home would pay an estimated $12.78 more per month for the building bond portion of the District 307 tax bill.

Design development update rescheduled

An update on the design development phase of the facilities project, which was expected at the board’s Oct. 2 operations committee meeting, will not take place until the Oct. 30 committee meeting.

An update from BLDD Architects was on the Oct. 2 operations committee agenda, but due to a scheduling miscommunication, the BLDD representative was not in attendance.

Kolitwenzew said the district had been referring to its previous timeline, where the design development presentation would happen in advance of the Oct. 14 board meeting.

However, the planning process was delayed by about a month in July. It was agreed that BLDD would make the presentation at the later October operations committee meeting.

So, instead of the full board being ready to vote on design development documents in October, that vote won’t happen until its next regular meeting Nov. 10.

Kolitzwenzew noted that BLDD has completed a design development document of about 584 pages that goes into detail on the nuances of the project.

“I’m very confident with regard to the plan,” she said.