It appears that Tuesday's sale of $17.7 million in "refunding" (refinancing) bonds by the City of Portland was successful. The city's debt manager, Eric Johansen, reports that there were nine bids, and that the bonds "were purchased by Hutchinson, Shockey, Erley & Co. at a true interest cost of 3.4248%." The interest yields on the new bonds were quite a bit lower than what they were on the original bonds that were paid off -- 4.6 to 5.0 percent.

The bottom line appears to be that the city's taxpayers will get to pay off this sliver of the city's huge debt at a much lower rate of interest. Even given the transaction costs of putting the refinancing together, that's a decent deal. And make no mistake, the taxpayers are going to need all the help they can get when the time finally comes to pay back the billions that the city is borrowing, and continues to borrow.

UPDATE, 5:15 p.m.: Johansen further explains that "the refunding reduces annual debt service costs by about $155,000 per year over the ten remaining years of the financing. The present value of the annual savings amounts is about $1.32 million. The savings amounts are all net of transaction costs." That ain't hay.