District 88 continues to be fiscally responsible to taxpayers

At District 88, maintaining a stable budget to be fair and fiscally responsible to taxpayers is a top priority. While we face a challenging economy, we continue to look at ways to be financially efficient, while still providing a high-quality and comprehensive high school environment for all students.

As part of our commitment to that goal, we would like to share with you two exciting financial updates.

• District 88 recently refinanced a large portion of its outstanding bonds to take advantage of historically low interest rates. That refinancing of $80 million of bonds (which was approved by the District 88 Board of Education on Dec. 19) will save the district and taxpayers $10.6 million throughout the remaining 10-year bond term and future tax levies. To break that down to an individual level, a taxpayer with property valued at $300,000 should expect to save about $63 in the 2016 tax cycle and about $33 for every year thereafter until 2028 (based on the presumption there is no change in the property value).
  
  The outstanding bonds, which were issued during the district’s community-supported Building The Future referendum, carried an average interest rate of 4.95 percent, compared to the new lower rate of 2.714 percent. We actively pursue all opportunities to improve our finances to alleviate the burden on taxpayers, and we are pleased with the results of this most recent sale.
  
  
• We also are happy to share District 88 recently received an Aa1 rating by Moody's Investors Service, which is the second-highest rating possible. The purpose of Moody's ratings is to provide investors with a system of gradation by which future relative creditworthiness of securities may be gauged. According to Moody’s, the Aa1 rating reflects the district's “sizeable tax base located near the City of Chicago, strong liquidity position and solid reserves with stabilizing financial operations …”

District 88 focuses on being open and transparent with regard to its finances, and information about budgets, tax levies, contracts and more can be found at www.dupage88.net/BusinessOffice.

For questions or more information, feel free to contact me at [email protected] or 630-530-3970. Thank you for your continued support of District 88.