By Andrew Walsh
awalsh@wbcowqel.com

NFL football may be on a hiatus after the Super Bowl, but Buckeye Central was already thinking about the 2016 season at Thursday’s school board meeting.

The district welcomed two new members Thursday night. Rob Detterman was ratified as the new varsity football coach and Lisa Aichholz took the oath of office as a new board member.

Detterman comes to Buckeye via the New London and Tiffin Calvert school districts. His candidacy was considered by a committee consisting of Superintendent Mark Robinson, Principal Mike Martin, teacher Joe Wiels, Athletic Direct Jay Zeiter, and community member Scott McDougal.

“We’re really excited to recommend him to you this evening,” Robinson said.

When asked what attracted him to the position, Detterman showed no hesitation in citing the “strong moral fiber and work ethic,” of the community. It’s a community he expressed familiarity with and also spoke highly of its smaller size and rural setting.

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Aichholz took over the seat on the board vacated by the resignation of Mike Dean. Dean was elected in November 2015, but resigned before ever assuming office due to personal reasons.

The Board listened to a presentation from Mike Burns, a representative of Robert Baird & Co., about refunding the school’s 2007 series Classroom Facilities and School Improvement Bonds (the bonds for the new school). This not an unusual action for districts to take, when the right situation comes around refinancing bonds can save schools a great deal of money.

Burns outlined to the board that just such a moment has arisen, due to two key factors. The first is that interest rates are extremely low at the moment, and the second is that Buckeye Central should be a due a healthy upgrade in its bond rating. The bonds were issued when Buckeye was a very respectable “A3” rating, but Burns provided information that the school should be bumped up at least one rating to an Aa3, with a very outside chance of being bumped two spots to an Aa2. Although Burns wanted to be sure to stress that getting a two rating bump was pretty unlikely.

What this means for the school is that each bump in credit rating would offer savings over and above the savings they would receive from refinancing. The numbers presented were $815,615 in savings over the life of the bond if refinanced now if Buckeye received no bump in credit rating. That number is a savings that would be realized over the life of the bond, which is out until December 2035. If the district received a bump to the Aa23 credit rating, that savings would jump to $853,668.

Traditionally, these refinancing projects have represented direct savings in taxation, not money being put back in the district’s funds. However, the State of Ohio has recently approved a new form of refinancing where a district can take a front loaded savings over the first three years of the life of the refinance, and place that in a permanent improvements fund. The logic behind this being that since these are funds that have been already approved by the voters for permanent improvements that this sort of action would fall in line with its original intention.

It should also be said that these funds are typically earmarked for a large scale project, not simply tucked into a fund to slowly pay for small time projects. There is the further caveat that such a front end loaded savings would be smaller than savings over the life of the loan. In Buckeye’s case, the savings would be $679,693.

The positives to a move such as this are that there is an immediate influx of cash into a permanent improvements fund where the board can enact a similar large scale project. The project that might be applicable to Buckeye Central would be the possible auxiliary gymnasium facility that has been bounced around.

The board took no official action, after hearing Burns’ presentation, other than to give their consent to refinancing the bonds. Which avenue to take as to how the refinance will be accomplished will be discussed in the coming weeks. Although, Burns did think that the sooner an answer could be arrived at the better the result would be.