School Bond Refinance Deal on Hold, Officials Say

Recent remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke that sent bond yields rising rattled things all the way down to Cherry Hill, where school administrators have had to hold off on a plan to refinance $16.15 million worth of bonds.

Though the school board OK’d the refinancing plan, which was projected to save local taxpayers about $525,000 over the remaining life of the debt, the interest rates projected for the refinance evaporated in the wake of Bernanke’s recent speech to Congress, said Jim Devereaux, the district’s assistant superintendent for business.

“The day we were going to go to the market was the day Bernanke gave his speech,” he said. “We actually had to pull it back, and then the markets went haywire.”

That’s not to say the refinancing plan is dead, though—Devereaux said it’s just a matter of seeing whether the bond market settles down from that uptick.

“We’re going to wait for a better time to go back to see if we can still get a good rate,” he said.