Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Redmond School District is celebrating the successful sale of $110 million in bonds to pay for a new high school and elementary school.

But if you're expecting a similar bond for your local school district, it may be a long time coming. Central Oregon correspondent Ethan Lindsey reports.

The school district officially sold the bonds Thursday, but advisers say if they were to try to sell them today, it wouldn’t be possible.

In May, Redmond voters approved the $110 million bond to relieve crowding at the city’s lone high school.

Dave Taylor is a vice president at Seattle-Northwest Securities. He worked on Redmond’s bond issue.

Dave Taylor: “The challenge was, what the district wants is the lowest possible interest rates for its taxpayers, and what investors and the market wants is the highest possible rates.”

Taylor says interest rates shot up again, just hours after Redmond locked its deal in.

Dave Taylor: “Even though I do this for a living, I can’t tell you what rates are going to do tomorrow, much less January or February.”

The district says a delay like that would have meant the high school construction would have been slowed by up to a year.

The district will now begin the construction phase.