The Newhall School District sold $36 million worth of notes Thursday from the second issuance of bonds made possible by last November’s 2011 Measure E general obligation bond authorization.

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“This is an exciting period because we’ve got a lot of construction plans moving forward,” said Ronna Wolcott, assistant superintendent for business services. “We need a large infusion of cash to execute construction contracts and continue our planning efforts. There will be a lot of activity in the district in the next three years.”

The $36 million yielded by this sale will allow the Newhall School District to move forward on several fronts, as promised to the voters in November 2011, said Newhall School District Superintendent Marc Winger.

Projects to replace old portable buildings with permanent construction are underway at Valencia Valley and Meadows Schools and an old student bathroom building is being replaced at Stevenson Ranch School.

Planning is under way for renovating the Newhall School auditorium, creating a 550-seat children’s theater for use by the school district and community. There also is planning under way for the replacement of old portable buildings at Peachland and Old Orchard Schools.

The governing board took the necessary actions at their Nov. 5 board meeting to authorize the sale of short-term Bond Anticipation Notes (BANs) and when offered to investors early, they sold quickly to four institutional investors.

The timing for these types of decisions is critical, said Newhall School District Superintendent Marc Winger.

“We’re not in a big hurry,  we just want to make sure we had it (for upcoming projects),” Winger said. “The market was just right and we had a great rating so we decided to go ahead and sell.”

The Newhall notes were sold at a market-low 2.05 percent, school officials said.

Ratings are important to taxpayers living in the district’s boundaries – the better the rating, the

more eager buyers are to purchase the notes, allowing for lower interest payments to the

investors, in turn saving individual taxpayers thousands of tax dollars over time, according to school officials.

The agency rated the district highly, awarding a SP-1+, the highest possible rating for short term borrowing.

The first issuance of the $60 million bond paid for technological improvements, such as the purchase of wireless networking and infrastructure required for the new common core standards, Winger said.

The rating the district received is based on Newhall School District’s “very strong available fund balance” and “good recent financial performance in light of a difficult funding environment, supported by what we view as good management practices.”

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