MASON CITY — Cerro Gordo County will save over $230,000 as the county’s board of supervisors today approved refinancing bonds that were used to construct the county’s law enforcement center.

Heidi Kuhl of Northland Securities says the county received three bids from local banks with outstanding rates.  “The low bid came from MBT Bank with a purchase price of $4,573,000. The true interest cost rate is at 0.399%. This interest savings will be $231,875.65, or approximately $46,000 a year.”

Kuhl says the savings for the county was better than anticipated.  “When we had originally ran some numbers for you at the beginning of January, rates were a little bit higher. Also the three banks came in very strongly. This is a very good rate. The county definitely has support from it’s local banks.”

County budget manager Heather Mathre says the county’s taxpayers will benefit from this savings. “We have been working on our budget for Fiscal Year 2022 and once you approve these, we will see some savings in our debt service levy next year. We’ll go ahead and be able to drop that levy even a little bit more for the taxpayers with the interest savings.”

The supervisors today also set a public hearing for their March 2nd meeting about the proposed property tax levy for the Fiscal Year 2022 budget.