Volume I, No. 20

Edited: April 2, 2009: 1:56 p.m.

April 2, 2009

Some Relief for Public Works Projects

By Duwayne Brooks

The Department of Finance (DOF) recently posted information on their website regarding the disbursement of bond funds from the proceeds of the sale of $6.5 billion in state bonds by the State Treasurer during the week of March 23, 2009.

The bond sale provides some relief for the $2.4 billion in school construction projects that received apportionments from the State Allocation Board (SAB), but whose disbursements of funds were frozen by the Pooled Money Investment Board on December 17, 2008 due to the state’s cash flow problem.

Of the $6.5 billion in bond proceeds, $540,988,000 will be disbursed in date order to school facility projects that received an apportionment from the SAB and submitted a fund release request, but received no funds due to the disbursement freeze.

In addition to the $540,988,000 for the above projects, five health and safety projects on the DOF exempted list will be funded.  Those five projects are in Sacramento Unified, Exeter Union High, Princeton Joint Unified, Atwater Elementary, and Needles Unified School Districts.

Using the Project Information data on page 80 of the March 25, 2009 SAB Agenda, it appears that the $540,988,000 will be disbursed to Fund Release Requests (50-05) that were received between October 8, 2008 and December 17, 2008 and to a portion of Fund Release Requests that were received on December 18, 2008.

The information regarding which specific projects will receive funding is not official. It is simply our calculation based on the information provided in the SAB agenda as of March 25 and needs to be verified with the Office of Public School Construction.