001Good afternoon, everyone. I now call to order the special meeting of the Rio Grande City Grulla ISD school board. The time is 12:15 p.m. This meeting was properly posted on May 7th, 2026 at 4:00 p.m. We will begin with roll call. Mr. Rene Pena. >> Present. >> Mr. Eduardo Ramirez. Absent. Mr. Noe Castillo. Absent. Mr. um Basilio Villarreal. Absent. Ms. Patsy Garcia. >> Present. >> And Mr. Jessie Solis. >> Present. >> All right. And Ms. Guadalupe Garza. >> Present. >> Thank you. And we will move on to the invocation led by Mr. Pena. >> Let's go ahead and uh bow our heads. Heavenly Father, Lord, we just want to thank you for having us here again uh this afternoon, Father, that we may ask for your guidance, your direction as we make decisions for the
002district. Father, we always put our students and our staff at the forefront. Father, that we always make decisions that are beneficial to our district and that we keep pushing it forward. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. >> And now the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Do we have any public comments? Thank you. >> Madam President, before we go into action items, we can take a a quick executive session uh before we go into the item. >> All right. So, we will move on to executive session. The time is now 12:16. It is 12:29 and we're now back um into open session. We will uh
003um continue with item 6A, considering and take action on a reso- resolution authorizing the issuance of Rio Grande City Grulla ISD um maintenance tax notes series 2026 providing for the payment of such maintenance tax notes specifying the terms and features of said maintenance tax notes and resolving other matters incident and related to the issuance, sale, payment, and delivery of said maintenance tax notes. >> Good afternoon. >> In April of 2026, the district's financial advisor, Estrada Hinojosa, presented a plan of finance outlining the structure, timing, and anticipated use of proceeds for the issuance of Rio Grande City Grulla ISD maintenance tax notes series 2026. The school board of trustees authorized the district to move forward with a proposed financing in order to address identified needs, support ongoing projects, and ensure the efficient management of district resources
004for the Fort Ringgold Auditorium and the Ramiro Villegas gym for a wrestling center. Administration is now presenting a resolution authorizing the issuance of the Rio Grande City Grulla ISD maintenance tax notes series 2026 providing for the payment of such maintenance tax notes specifying the terms and features of said maintenance tax notes and resolving other matter matters incident and related to the issuance, sale, payment, and delivery of said maintenance tax notes. Uh, Dr. De Los Santos is here to present on the terms. >> Uh, Madam President, members of the board. Ms. Garza. Truly a pleasure. I think Angel Magallanes from our office is, uh, with us virtually. So, uh, if I miss anything, you'll you'll plug it in. Uh, very quickly, there's four or five pages I want to go over with you very quickly that
005tell the story of what we're offering you today. Um you are the issuer on that first page. You're the issuer. We are your financial advisor. The Pettis Law Firm is your uh bond counsel. They're the ones that prepared the resolution that you would be uh considering and hopefully approving. And the recommended purchaser, the best bid on on these particular bonds that you're selling was Lone Star National Bank. You had You had three bidders. You had uh on the next page, Amegy Bank, and you had Lone Star National Bank, and you had Huntington. Lone Star National Bank submitted two bids. One with a callable feature, and one without a with a non-callable feature. A callable feature is um a callable feature is at a certain time, built in your contract, at a certain time, uh if
006the interest rates are better than they are right now, you're able to uh refinance those bonds for a lesser interest rate, and reduce of the uh the payments that you that you will owe, and in essence, save principal and interest. If you will notice, on Lone Star National Bank, with the non-callable bonds, which means they're going to stay that way throughout the the 15 years that you're financing, um you would be paying um a total debt service over the 15 years of a net 11,751,067. And with the uh with the bonds being callable, uh your interest rate goes up 10 basis points from 4.35 to 5.445. Uh and the payment goes up a little bit because of that those 10 basis points at 1/10 of 1%, takes the payment up approximately approximately $5,000. So, our
007recommendation is going to be there. The difference between for the full amount for the full 15 years that you continue to pay between callable and non-callable is $83,000 $910. Approximately $5,000 to $6,000 a year. The next page is a table of of what you're going to owe. I mean, that's your amortization schedule. Kind of like the amortization schedule you have or have had on your homes. Um the amortization schedule shows at the very top that um the par amount is what $8,130,000. $8,130,000. And what we have there is TIC. The third line of the little square at the top 4.45% percent. That is the callable the bonds with the callable feature that that we believe are in the best interest of the district. And a delivery date would be that is the delivery date is
008the day that you get the bonds. Uh is anticipated to be on June the 10th, 2026. Now, if you look at the bottom part the left the left two columns or the the second to the left column where it says existing debt service those that's what your payments are right now on bonds that you hold. You look at footnote at the bottom from 2021, 2018, 2017. So, those are the payments that you're paying on those four old bonds. Now the middle block there the middle block shows uh what your new payments are going what the payments are going to be on your new debt, the 8.130. Uh and that is you'll notice that the first few years uh we didn't pay interest. We have principal only for 2 3 years. And the reason for that
009was to keep the payments the first few years low. And we back-loaded the interest so that in 2033 when you finish paying all of the bonds that you owe right now you start paying your interest principal and interest on uh your loan this loan and you end up with approximately the same payment for those last six or eight years the same payment that you're currently paying for the bonds that you have. So, we try to minimize the payment for the new money and it averages out to about the first five or six years averages out to maybe $400,000, $500,000, between four and $500,000 for the new money and then towards the end you know, you're just paying what you're paying right now the last few years. That's the way that we structured the debt. And
010uh that's the way that superintendent proposed, you know, and uh business manager you know, keep the hit up front as low as you possibly can. And then uh the last page there is a timeline. On April the 14th, you approved that we move forward with the financing. Um yesterday we received these bids that I'm putting before you. And today we're before you uh asking for authorization of the order and approval of the bids uh for Lone Star National Bank. I mean, you can pick any bank you want. Uh we're offering you what we think is in the best interest of the school district. >> So, Lone Star National Bank is the lowest? >> I mean the >> Uh Lone Lone National Bank is the lowest that's offering the lowest interest on that on that bond
011one. >> That's correct. >> Right. >> That's correct. Well, I just I just want to add it's it's uh it's not the Can you hear me okay? >> Yes. >> Okay. Yeah, it's it's it's not it's not the the lowest uh rate on there, but it is the best option and flexibility. Um they did have like Dr. Los Santos mentioned the non-callable option, um meaning that you cannot pay ear- early, um and you cannot refund, uh and that was a 10 basis points lower, uh but we believe that the best terms um and conditions is that callable option, as Dr. Los Santos mentioned, even though it's just slightly higher, uh if you were to pay that bond earlier, it then it would save a dramatic amount of interest amount uh for the district. And And
012And that's what we're hoping for, um you know, ei- either pay them off earlier down the road if, you know, once once those funds are available, so we could save on interest, and and or um you know, hopefully the interest rates are lower and we could refund it and get a a lower interest at that time. So, due to that flexibility and and that those options, we were recommending that that third row there of Lone Star National Bank at 4.45%. >> My My question to Mr. Rodriguez and uh Dr. Salinas, uh do we still feel feel comfortable with these numbers where we will be able to cover uh what we had originally planned for? >> Madam President, members of the board, to answer your question, Mr. Peña, we do. Obviously, because the bond of it
013is in the first couple of years, so that's where we have to make that adjustment with with our personnel, and you know, in the expenditures. And after that, like Dr. De Los Santos mentioned it it tails off to where we're at now. So, because of that we got >> Because as long as we feel comfortable with those numbers and I mean I think that that we can move forward with it. I don't >> I I also I also want to add what we had presented earlier we had a preliminary interest rate of 5%. So, so our our debt service payments were a little higher in in our first initial scenario thankfully the the rates were were much lower than that and so that also provides some the lower payments throughout the year than what we
014had proposed originally. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Can I have a motion to approve item 6A as presented? >> So moved. >> Second? Jesse, any other questions or discussion? All those in favor raise your right hand. And motion passes. We move on to public comments on non-agenda items. We have none. Thank you. Any announcements, Mr. Garcia? >> Uh none. >> Thank you. And being that there are no further items left on the agenda, I now declare this meeting adjourned at 12:40 p.m. Thank you and have a great day.