Happy New Year to all of our patrons in Central Public Schools District. Hope all of your resolutions are kept and the New Year brings good tidings to all of our folks. We sure can enjoy the fact that the temperatures are up a bit from where they have been.

By now, all the residents have heard or seen that the district had to add a nominal interest fee on to our bonds of 1.26%. Our board also worked out a great solution for keeping taxes at the level shown to the public before the election. This process has been somewhat stressful for the board and administration by the fact that these are a new product that was born of the stimulus package. As such, the districts awarded these bonds were somewhat the proverbial guinea pigs for this experiment by the federal government.

Our board, considering the rates and problems some other districts have seen, feels fortunate to have been able to secure these at the rate they locked in. Most sales of these same bond products have seen higher interest rates attached, and I spoke with one superintendent last week whose district could not find a buyer for their allotment of these bonds at all. They were able to secure an extension from the Minnesota Department of Education, but didn’t know if that would help them get the deal done or not. The next group of schools that qualify for these bonds will have a much greater insight into how they are marketed and sold, which will hopefully help them through the process. As a result, instead of saving $6.1 million in interest, we will actually save $4.9 million while keeping the tax impact as promised.

First semester ends tomorrow already. Time for those college applications or plans for the future to be kicked into high gear, as spring goes past extremely quickly, for both students and staff, especially once February is in the rear view mirror. This is a tremendous time for opportunity for our youth getting ready to graduate. It has been predicted that our graduates in 2020 will have 10-15 different jobs and that before they reach the age of 40. It appears that having a variety of skills and interests will pay off for the graduates of the future.

Speaking of graduates, this year marks the 100th graduating class from Central High School. As such, there has been a push to have an all school reunion this summer. If there is anyone that has interest in taking charge of this or helping with this effort, please let us know. We will get more info out about this in the next few weeks.
Brian Corlett