(a) The committee shall determine whether or not it is necessary or desirable to issue bonds authorized pursuant to this article in order to carry out the actions specified in this article and, if so, the amount of bonds to be issued and sold. The Treasurer shall use reasonable efforts to sell bonds with pricing at par or better and to pay the issuance costs out of premium if reasonably achievable and in the best interests of the state, at the Treasurer’s discretion. Successive issues of bonds may be authorized and sold to carry out those actions progressively, and it is not necessary that all of the bonds authorized to be issued be sold at any one time. The bonds may bear interest, which is includable in gross income for federal income tax purposes if the committee determines that such treatment is necessary in order to provide funds for the purposes of the act. The costs of each bond issue sold on or after the 61st month after this article takes effect shall be at the discretion of the Treasurer and may be amortized over or up to a 40-year period.

(b) The total amount of the bonds authorized by Section 125291.110 that may be issued in any calendar year, commencing in 2021, shall not exceed a cumulative average of five hundred forty million dollars ($540,000,000). If less than this amount of bonds is issued in any year, the remaining permitted amount may be carried over to one or more subsequent years. Pursuant to Section 125291.140, the Director of Finance may, in the director’s discretion, authorize a loan from the General Fund to the institute on or after the effective date of this article.

(c) Until December 31 of the fifth full calendar year after this section becomes effective, all interest on any interim debt or bonds issued under this article will be paid from proceeds from the sale of that interim debt or bonds in accordance with the objective of this initiative of avoiding any debt service payments by the General Fund, both principal and interest, during the initial period of basic research and therapy development following the effective date of this section.

(Added November 3, 2020, by initiative Proposition 14, Sec. 24. Effective on December 16, 2020.)