Palmerton could save about $275,000 through the refinancing of a prior bond issue.

Zach Williard, Public Financial Management, met with borough council on Thursday to discuss bond refinancing.Williard discussed refinancing the borough's existing 2011 bond issue, as well as new bonding for up to $2.5 million in street work."Interest rates are at historically low levels," Williard said.Williard told council there is still $9.5 million outstanding from the borough's 2011 bond. The call date for that is Sept. 1, 2016, he said.With council's consent, Williard said he will appear at its March 26 meeting with a pair of ordinances in tow.The first ordinance will spell out the parameters for the issuance of refinancing the bond, he said.Williard said that if the borough would refinance $7.5 million, it would likely result in an estimated net savings of $275,000.Council President Terry Costenbader said he was in favor of such an agreement."That's a substantial amount of money as far as I'm concerned," Costenbader said.The second ordinance would authorize the issuance of up to $2.5 million for street work through the Request for Proposal process, Williard said.Borough Manager Rodger Danielson expounded on the street work after the meeting."It won't consist of a lot of construction, but it will consist of resurfacing, primarily north of Delaware Avenue," Danielson said. "Some of the other areas, we aren't forgetting about them, but we have CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) funds in those areas."Danielson said that the borough undertook a road program in the early 1990s, at which time it resurfaced all of the roads done through a series of loans and grants that utilized CDBG funding.