Featured Municipal Bond in the Market, Week of 01/09/2017: Denver CO Public Schools General Obligation Bonds – $477 Million
This week’s featured bond comes from the State of Colorado. The Denver City/County School District #1 is issuing tax-exempt general obligation bonds in the amount of $477 million the week of January 9, 2017. These bonds are scheduled to be issued as a single series, used primarily to fund electorally approved capital projects of the District, broken down into four categories:
- Maintenance – Approximately half of District facilities, encompassing two-thirds of District square footage, was built in 1969 or before. Included will be cooling systems for 79 facilities that currently have part or no air condition control, and sustainability investments like converting all facilities to LED lighting.
- New Capacity – Building new facilities to account for the estimated 4,000 enrollment increase by 2020, as well as creating a new early childhood center.
- Quality Learning Environments – Upgrading learning environments in older facilities that have not received significant updates in decades, including 151 awards to individual facilities for targeted investments like new furniture and upgrading classrooms to science labs.
- Technology and Safety – Investments to increase the number of schools that have at least one internet-accessible device per student.
The bonds are general obligations. The full faith and credit of the District is pledged, and is secured by the unlimited ability to levy ad valorem property taxes. Further details on the purposes, security, tax-status, and other matters pertaining to these Denver CO Public Schools general obligation bonds can the found in the preliminary official statement, provided by MuniOS.
As of November 2016, the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood Metropolitan Area has an unemployment rate of 2.6%, which is 0.5% lower than the same time last year, and 2.1% lower than the national rate.
Provided at left is a quick snapshot of financial characteristics of Denver CO Public Schools, along with the medians for other school districts for 2015-2016, courtesy of Merritt Research Services, LLC. Merritt has many of the sector medians publicly available and regularly updated on their Benchmark Central page. (Merritt believes the data to be reliable but does not make any representations as to its accuracy or completeness). In addition to the Merritt information related to the featured bond, more information can be found on our municipal bond calendar, city, state, and county pages, and our employment database. These facts and numbers are for informational purposes, and should not be considered an official disclosure for potential investors. Investors should consult the official statement. None of the information provided should be construed as a recommendation by MuniNet Guide, MuniNet LLC, Merritt Research Services LLC, or any of their employees. Information and analysis is for informational purposes only.