TO: Members of the Oregon Legislature
FM: John Charles for Cascade Policy Institute
RE: SB 5505/Elliott State Forest Bonds
DT: July 5, 2017
SB 5505 includes bond funding for many worthy projects. Unfortunately, it also includes authorization for the sale of $101 million in Certificates of Participation for the purpose of “buying out” part of the Elliott State Forest (ESF), which we already own.
The State Land Board chose this option in May rather than taking a cash offer of $220.8 million to sell most of the ESF, which is losing money for schools. While this “feel good” measure appeased many environmental interests, what has never been discussed publicly is the long-term opportunity cost of borrowing $101 million and paying $199 million in debt service over 25 years, instead of investing $220.8 million of new money into the Common School Fund.
The graphic below attempts to do that over a 50-year period, using an average total return rate of 5.58% (the actual rate over the past 10 years). The gap between the blue and red lines is the estimated loss to schools in the annual payouts from the CSF. Note that the gap widens over time and can never be made up. Over the lifetime of the Fund – which is infinity – your approval of the bond sale will result in many billions of dollars lost to Oregon schools.
