The Manteca Unified Board of Education will prepay as much as of the outstanding Weston Ranch bond debt that they’re able to in order to save residents as much money as possible between now and when the Mello-Roos bonds and certificates of deposit issued against homeowners are paid off.
And as a result, the district will likely save an immense sum of money in legal fees now that the group of concerned Weston Ranch residents that had organized a petition to force the decision about how to proceed with the property tax before voters rather than the board has agreed to drop their effort and any legal recourse that may have come as a result.
The board voted unanimously on Tuesday night to approve a proposal that will take the roughly $3.2 million that is currently in reserve funds from the community facilities district fund that serves Weston Ranch and put it towards the $7.9 million worth of bonds that can be prepaid. That move will save some money that would otherwise go towards interest.
The board decided in July to place a sunset clause on the Mello-Roos tax that serves the area. They then took preliminary steps that started the cost saving measure for local homeowners that became upset when they learned that the property taxes they were paying for what they thought were elementary schools and the high school that served the South Stockton community were being used elsewhere.
While Tuesday’s decision won’t do anything to shorten the length of time required to pay off the existing bonds – meaning that homeowners in the area will be paying annually to service them through 2033 – the amount of money each homeowner will save when compared to what was their annual property tax bill will be ramped up over the first seven years of the agreement, and then be reduced to the amount that they would have saved after the board made its decision in July.
The enhanced savings will get a boost from an agreement that the district won’t take more than $10,000 in administrative costs in any given year for servicing the debt on the existing bonds and the certificates of participation. The district also will lower the threshold for the amount of money that they’ll be collecting from the maximum allowed by law to an amount that will more accurately reflect the annual debt service payments. That will eliminate any excess or surplus funds that had grown to more than $3 million.
“This plan will bring savings to the people of Weston Ranch right now,” said former board trustee Dale Fritchen, who discovered what he said were financial discrepancies when searching for information on a related but separate topic. “But arguing about these things isn’t good for our district and it isn’t good for our kids when we could be talking about the things that we need to do for them instead.”
Fritchen said that he’ll drop his petition push as a result of the decision after he met with Superintendent Jason Messer and lawyers representing the district’s financial interests last week – hashing out an agreement that would satisfy all parties and move the district and the Weston Ranch community beyond the tax flap.
When Messer made his comments to the board about the proposals that were before them – they technically had three options on how best to proceed – he thanked Fritchen for meeting with him last week to discuss the best course of action in advance of the meeting and to try and find a workable solution.
“Is this the best thing that we did? No,” said Trustee Nancy Teicheira of the decision to issue certificates of participation against Weston Ranch’s bonds without reading the fine print. “But it showed us that the board can work together towards find a solution to things like this that benefits everybody.”
Teicheira, along with current trustee Evelyn Moore, were on the board with Fritchen when the financial matters concerning the community facilities district came before them. According to Teicheira, approving COPs at the time meant that Weston Ranch was able to get the facilities that were constructed at the time the school opened as opposed to waiting for them to be added later – similar to what happened at Sierra High School with both the football stadium and the school’s pool.
To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.