John Baracy, Managing Director
John Baracy joined Baird in 2024, opening the firm’s first California Public Finance office focusing on negotiated underwriting. John serves as the as the Manager of Baird’s California Public Finance Group and is the California K-12 market lead. He has over 25 years of public finance experience and expertise in all facets of the municipal finance business. He currently specializes in the management, structuring and underwriting of California K-12 new money and refunding general obligation bonds, certificates of participation/leases, Mello-Roos bonds, and tax and revenue anticipation notes. Throughout his career, he has completed over 650 financings totaling funding of more than $15 billion.
Most notably, John pioneered Build America Bond (BABs) crossover refundings for his California K-12 clients and implemented general obligation stepped coupon bonds as a cost-effective alternative to Capital Appreciation Bonds (CABS), saving taxpayers millions of dollars in debt service costs. He has also developed complex refunding/refinancing structures during his career to complement prevailing market conditions, generating over $250 million in total debt service savings for his clients. John has served on the board of directors, and as Treasurer, for the Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH). He currently serves on the California Association of School Business Officials (CASBO) Associate Member Committee (AMC) as the legislative advocacy committee representative. He contributes to important issues on behalf of California K-12 school districts with other California Chief Business Official leaders throughout the State. His endeavors have led to positive changes benefiting California K-12 school districts to significant school finance bills such as AB 182 (2013) and the effort to amend the unintended consequences of AB 195 (2017). He also serves as the President for the Santa Monica Education Foundation, his local public school district, fundraising for additional academic, arts and athletic programs that are currently unfunded by the State of California. John earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Arizona State University.