Strong Interest Leads to High Number of Local Government Participants in Financing.
OLYMPIA, WA. –
Washington state’s strong economic outlook and recent upgrade to Aaa by Moody’s Investors Service helped spur strong interest from investors in a $82,705,000 competitive sale of Series 2019D Certificates of Participation (COPs), financing $97,908,412.81 of property for the state and local governments.
This sale saw the highest number of local government participants in an individual financing throughout the program’s history, according to the Office of the State Treasurer’s Certificates of Participation Administrator Matt Schoenfeld.
“The success of this sale means that our local government participants were able to finance much needed equipment and real estate projects at an incredibly low interest rate,” said Schoenfeld.
The Series 2019D participants include 7 fire districts, 4 school districts, 2 cities, one county and one port district. Some examples of property financed on behalf these agencies include school buses, fire trucks, building construction and land acquisition.
The sale also fulfilled 27 financing requests on behalf of state agencies, funding over $87.3 million worth of property. For real estate projects, a state agency must have their request approved by the legislature in the state’s capital budget.
Major projects financed on behalf of state agencies with the proceeds of this sale include $22.7 million for Yakima Valley College’s West Campus expansion and $7.5 million for the Walla Walla Community College to finance a Student Recreation Center and their Clarkston campus Student Activity Center.
An additional objective of this sale was to refinance certain outstanding COPs to achieve interest rate savings. The sale produced net present value savings of over $6.9 million on behalf of four state agencies and two local governments.
“We sell these Certificates of Participation to help finance the purchasing needs of local governments and state agencies at an interest rate much lower than they could receive on their own. Providing financing opportunities for local government is just one way the Treasurer’s office serves as the bank of Washington state,” said Treasurer Duane Davidson.
