USD 383 recently completed the sale of $81,590,000 of General Obligation Bonds (the District sold about $10,000,000 worth of the bonds in December 2008). The District has moved forward quickly with the sale of these bonds to take advantage of lower interest rates and a recently introduced federal program related to school bond issues. The new federal program, referred to as Build America Bonds, provides a federal credit equal to 35% of the interest payment on the bonds. This new financing option was used in conjunction with a traditional tax-exempt bond issue in order to obtain a significantly lower interest rate on the Bonds.

During the bond election campaign, the District projected a mill levy for payments on the Bonds of 9.85 mills. This was based upon an estimated interest rate of 5.1% on the Bonds.The Bonds were sold at an average interest rate of 4.2% - much lower than initially projected. This results in significantly lower interest expense on the Bonds and a total savings of $7,700,000 to the taxpayers of the District. Furthermore, the projected mill levy for the repayment of the Bonds has been reduced to 9.45 mills, which is lower than the projected 9.85 mills used during the bond election campaign.