Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell last week announced 46 school districts that will receive proceeds from upcoming qualified school construction bonds.
The state has $602 million of QSCB borrowing capacity allocated for 2009 and 2010. The State Public School Building Authority will issue the taxable QSCBs in multiple deals, along with $112 million of taxable qualified zone academy bonds, beginning in September, according to SPSBA comptroller Dave Player.
Citi and Morgan Stanley will alternate as co-senior managers, with Citi pricing a September bond issue. Public Financial Management Inc. is the financial adviser. Ballard Spahr LLP is bond counsel.
Officials are still working on the size of the September sale, Player said.
QSCBs and QZABs are taxable bonds that offer issuers a direct federal subsidy on interest costs. Rendell said the QSCB program will save Pennsylvania school districts a projected $513 million.
QSCBs were created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. QZABs had existed previously but were expanded under the federal stimulus plan. The federal government assigns QSCB and QZAB bonding capacity to states and large local school districts.
The Rendell administration is allocating its $602 million of QSCBs to schools that would use them to reduce energy or water consumption, update or build facilities for early childhood education, or develop learning labs for science, technology, engineering, and math programs.
The federal government also appropriated QSCBs directly to large local school districts. The Philadelphia City School District received a combined QSCB allocation of $292.2 million in 2009 and 2010. The Pittsburgh School District received $19.5 million in 2010.
