Florida’s elected Cabinet on Tuesday authorized the sale of nearly $1.5 billion of debt.
The state board authorized $900 million of revenue bonds to be sold by the Florida Housing Finance Corp. to fund below-market-rate mortgages for low-, moderate-, and middle-income homebuyers.
The state Division of Bond Finance will sell $285 million of new Florida Forever revenue bonds for environmental projects, $278 million of Florida Forever refunding bonds, and $19.5 million of parking facility revenue bonds for the University of Central Florida.
No dates for the sale of the bonds have been set, but market conditions are favorable, in stark contrast to conditions a year ago when the credit markets were essentially frozen, said Ben Watkins, director of the division.
“The market has improved continuously since the beginning of the calendar year,” he said, adding that there has been robust demand for Florida paper at very low interest rates,
Watkins said that since the beginning of the fiscal year on July 1, his division has sold six refunding deals totaling $1 billion that grossed debt service savings of $125 million. Another three taxable Build America Bond sales totaling $675 million were sold for gross-debt service savings of $110 million compared with conventional tax-exempt transactions.
The Cabinet, which approves debt and policy decisions of state agencies, is composed of Gov. Charlie Crist, Attorney General Bill McCollum, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, and Charles Bronson, commissioner of the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
