The Snoqualmie Valley School District recently refinanced a portion of its outstanding bonds from 2005, to take advantage of more favorable municipal bond market conditions. Through the refinancing, the district secured more than $655,000 in debt-service savings over the life of the bonds, or about 16 percent.

These savings allow for reduced tax levies. They are not available for district expenses.

During the life of a school bond, often 20 years, a school district is allowed just one opportunity to refinance. Interest rates on the new bonds will average 1.73 percent, compared to 5 percent on the old bonds.

“We are grateful to our community for passing bonds and levies that help keep our schools and programs strong and moving forward with improvements,” said Superintendent Joel Aune. “When the markets trend favorably, we look to take advantage of opportunities to save money for our taxpayers. With interest rates dipping to historic lows, this was the time to refinance our bonds to take advantage of those interest rates.”

This refinancing effort, combined with refinancing of other bonds over the past few years, brings the net savings to taxpayers to approximately $3,980,000 on approximately $40 million of refunded bonds.