The Massachusetts School Building Authority intends to sell $395 million of Series 2020C taxable senior dedicated sales tax refunding bonds competitively on Wednesday.
PFM is the financial advisor; Mintz Levin is the bond counsel. Greenberg Traurig LLP is disclosure counsel.
Maturities will run through 2043. Scheduled closing is Oct. 8.
Moody’s Investors Service rates the bonds Aa2. S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings rate them AA-plus and AAA, respectively.
The state legislature created the quasi-independent authority in 2004 to overhaul the process of funding capital improvement projects in public schools statewide. State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg oversees a seven-member board of directors, which meets six times a year to approve projects.
Since 2004, MSBA has made $14.7 billion in payments to cities, towns and regional school districts.
In addition, the authority has completed final audits of 1,167 projects, totaling more than $18.7 billion in submitted costs.
Authority initiatives include a collaborative procurement program aimed at saving school districts money on furniture buy purchasing in bulk together with other districts. Working with the nonprofit, Massachusetts Higher Education Consortium, manufacturers have indicated a willingness to provide deeper discounts.
Key projects have included Cape Cod Technical High School, with completion scheduled for the winter; and Quincy South Middle School, on which the authority partnered with the city of Quincy with a new building for students in grades 5 through 8.
The new school, which opened in spring 2019, was constructed on the site of the former Sterling Middle School and created more than 95,000 square feet of space for 430 students.
