City Secures Favorable Borrowing Rate for Public Safety Training Facility

On Thursday, October 29, 2020, the City received extremely competitive bids on bonds that will provide $50 million to construct the public safety training facility and 911 operations center in northeast Sioux Falls. The City received five competitive bids on these bonds and accepted the lowest bid from Citigroup Global Markets, Inc., with a true interest cost of 2.39 percent on the 20-year tax-exempt bonds.

“The public safety training facility and 911 operations center is a long overdue investment that has been under consideration for many years. Since taking office in 2018, we prioritized this project recognizing how critically important it is to our community,” says Mayor Paul TenHaken. “The newly issued bonds garnered a lower interest rate compared with previous bond issuances by the City, which speaks to the community’s financial resilience even during an uncertain economic climate nationally.”

The last comparable bonds issued by the City of Sioux Falls were for the City Administration Building in 2016, which garnered an interest rate of 3.09 percent. The 2012 bonds for the Events Center were financed at 3.21 percent.

“Relative to our peer cities, the City of Sioux Falls limits how much it borrows, often less than half other comparable communities on a per capita basis,” states Shawn Pritchett, Director of Finance. “Last month, the City Council appropriated an additional $25.2 million to prepay existing debt with higher interest rates, which will result in significant interest savings to the City and free up funding for more infrastructure and quality of life investments over the next several years.”