A school district in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, sold $115.5 million in bonds to make general improvements across the district’s facilities.
The bonds, issued by the Oklahoma City School District, mature between 2026 and 2028, yielding between 2.9% and 3.75%. They received a rating of AA from S&P Global Ratings, which revised the district’s outlook to stable from negative.
“The stable outlook reflects our expectation that the district will be able to maintain reserves within its required policy level of 8% to 12% as it uses stimulus funding to transition to lower staffing levels to achieve a structurally balanced budget with ongoing revenues,” S&P analyst Misty Newland said in a press release.
Oklahoma City School District serves 34,800 students across 135 square miles in central Oklahoma. Voters in the district approved almost $1 billion worth of school bonds in a 2022 referendum. Including a $118 million issuance in 2023, the school district still has more than $700 million in bond authorization remaining.
While the school district’s economy has grown in recent years, S&P analysts do not expect that economic expansion to translate to rating upgrade within the next two years, they wrote.
The bonds are direct and general obligations of the school district, payable by property taxes.
Robert W. Baird & Co, Inc served as underwriter on the issuance, purchasing the bonds for par. BOK Financial Securities, Inc acted as financial advisor.