Credit Crisis and Its Effect on School Bond Sales

From today's Daily Breeze discussing credit crisis and plans for borrowing on local projects, the Torrance school bonds are mentioned:

School officials in Torrance are monitoring the credit situation as they seek some $355 million in bonds on the November ballot.

If Torrance voters approve the bonds, Measure Y and Measure Z, officials would try to sell them to investors in February at the earliest.

"If we were selling our bonds today, obviously it would have an effect," said Don Stabler, the district's top financial officer. "We would probably be ready to sell at the first part of the year. Our financial adviser does not think it will affect us at that time."

If they need to postpone the sale of the bonds until rates moderate, then that's fine, they'll have the flexibility to do that. Just because the bonds are voter approved now doesn't mean they have to be issued right now.

Another thing to keep in mind about the bond market turning sour is that it's depressing the amount of construction activity that's going on. That will tend to help the district when it puts out school projects for construction bids. There will likely be construction firms hungry for work and willing to bid more competitively for it.