SUN PRAIRIE, Wis. -- The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction said the state is getting $125.5 million in interest-free bonds, and the money will have a major affect on some property tax years.

The federal stimulus money is to be used to pay for school projects.

Sun Prairie school officials said the money comes at a good time because of major school projects, including a new high school, which is part of a nearly 100 million dollar referendum.

"When we presented it to the taxpayers, we said we we're going to borrow $96 million. But the true cost of it, we included the cost of interest into that, so now, on the last $23 million that we need, we won't need to pay any interest on, so that's a $15 million savings to the taxpayers," said Phil Frei, Sun Prairie School District deputy superintendent.

Sun Prairie property taxpayers will see the savings on their bill next year.

The Madison Metropolitan School District is not building new schools now, so it only received about $3.9 million, interest free, to handle infrastructure improvements.

The bulk of that money will help cover the cost of the district's new wireless infrastructure.

"Without funding in this day and age, funding being very tight, we can't do maintenance on an annual basis. So an opportunity like this allows us to do the maintenance today and pay it off over a period of time without having any interest costs associated with it," said Erik Kass, superintendent of business services for the Madison Metropolitan School District.

Elsewhere, the Adams-Friendship School District will get more than $2 million, Beloit will get $1.785 million, and the Fennimore, Middleton and Oregon school districts will get $500,000 each.

Monona Grove will get $729,000, Richland will get $437,000 and the Watertown School District will get more than $1.3 million in interest-free federal stimulus bonds.

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