City eNews Release:  Thursday, February 25, 2010

Pittsburg USD bond refunding saves local taxpayers’ dollars
Standard and Poor raises PUSD rating to “A”

Contact: Barbara Wilson (925) 473-2351

(Pittsburg, CA) Pittsburg Unified School District has saved its taxpayers over $255,000 by recently completing the refinancing of a series of its outstanding general obligation bonds. The bonds, originally issued in 1999, will now bear lower interest rates and these savings will be passed on directly to property owners within the District.

“We know that in today’s challenging economic times, anything you can do to lighten the load for people in the community is worth doing. As stewards of the public’s tax dollars it was the right thing to do,” said Superintendent Barbara Wilson.

The bonds that were refinanced were originally authorized by voters in November 1995 and were used to improve student safety, update classrooms for modern technology, construct, expand, renovate and upgrade classrooms and other school district facilities. At the time of the 1999 sale, the average interest cost on the bonds was approximately 4.67%. The average interest cost on the refunding bonds issued Tuesday was 3.80%.

“The passage of time and a lower interest rate environment provided the opportunity to refund the old bonds,” added Superintendent Wilson, who recommended the refunding at the District’s November Board meeting.

Subsequent to the Board action, the District received an “A” rating from Standard & Poor’s, a nationally recognized rating agency that provides credit scores to districts looking to borrow money. This was increased in May 2009 from the District’s earlier “A-” rating. It reflects consistently strong financial stewardship by the District. The better a district’s credit score, the lower interest rates tend to be.

The Pittsburg Unified School District Board authorized the sale at its November 2009 meeting. “At that meeting, we established a minimum savings threshold of at least $200,000. We thought at that amount of savings it would be worth it to proceed,” said Board President Vince Ferrante. “We’re thrilled to learn that the final savings to taxpayers was $255,385. This is the third time that this Board has been able to re-finance our bonds to ease the taxpayer burden.”

| R. Matt Rodriguez | Deputy City Manager - External Operations
| City of Pittsburg | 65 Civic Avenue | Pittsburg, CA 94565
| Office: (925) 252-4934 | Mobile: (925) 864-3346 | Fax: (925) 252-4851
| E-mail: mrodriguez@ci.pittsburg.ca.us