By Lynn Janes

The Silver City Consolidated Schools held a special meeting, on November 8, 2024. Members in attendance Ashley Montenegro, Michelle Diaz, Patrick Cohn, Mike McMillan and Kimberly Klement. Superintendent William Hawkins also attended.

Mark Valenzuela, financial advisor, Bosque Advisors LLC attended the meeting and Luis Carrasco, Romero Law Firm,  joined online to make a bond counsel presentation and resolution review.

Hawkins had asked them to do a presentation to the board to continue with the beginning of the upcoming projects. They have a resolution that must be submitted to the state in a timely manner to facilitate the sale of bonds.

Valenzuela highlighted the process for the board and Carrasco would go through the resolution. The resolution presented was long and Carrasco would go over it. They will also have a secondary document "preliminary official statement" that Valenzuela went over. This letter will be sent out to the bond investors for consideration. It must be factual, and the board will have a few weeks to review it for accuracy. If they find anything incorrect, they need to let them know. "It is the obligation of the board to know if any misrepresentations have been made. He said they would have a few weeks because of it being a 50-page document.

The first piece of legislature for them will be to authorize the bond issuance and they will be pursuing $7 million of the $25 million available at this time. The bonds must be sold within the parameters of the resolution they have before them. They will be delegating authority as a board to the superintendent or president to sign when bonds have been sold if they fall within the parameters.

Carrasco said this would be the same process they had done before in 2017,2018, 2019 and 2020. He went over all the projects the bonds could be used for. They still have outstanding bonds from the previous ones. In August 2024 they paid for a special election to have the voters approved a $25 million bond. The resolution will authorize the sale of $7 millions those bonds. The max interest rate will be 10 percent, but Carrasco said it would be significantly lower. They will be determining the final terms of the bonds and begin selling them end of this year and early 2025. All must be issued before March 2025.

Valenzuela said after the board approved the resolution they would be meeting with a rating agency, Moody Investor Services to pursue the interest rate. They would be hiring an investment bank to do the work of selling the bonds and it would all happen in the next month. The bonds would be ready to sell the second week in December 2024 and close  out the middle of January 2025. They will have an investment team to market the bonds.

Hawkins said on November 12, 2024, he would be making a presentation to the school capital outlay committee for the Cliff project for planning and design. He will be requesting an additional match beyond the 37 percent the state will be paying. Because they met the 10 mill levy and the level of the campus needs, he felt it would be possible. He will be reaching out to the local legislators for support.

Cohn aksed when they could use the additional bond money. Valenzuela said this year they would be using $7 million and could use $6 million for each of the next three years bringing it to the $25 million.

Carrasco encouraged the board to reach out to him with any questions.

The board approved the bond resolution. They will have the next two weeks to review the "preliminary official statement" to ensure accuracy.

Adjourned