Brown County Commissioners authorized the county’s financial advisor, 1st Southwest Company, to move forward “looking into the issuance of tax notes totaling $9 million for road and infrastructure improvements” on Monday.
George Williford of 1st Southwest Company spoke to commissioners’ court, giving details of the cost for the tax notes to be paid back within 7 years. He explained that tax notes are much more “streamlined” than issuing certificates of obligations which can be paid off in a longer period of time but take a longer more complicated process to issue.
Williford also outlined the timeline it would take to issue the notes which could be funded as early as July 10th.
Commissioners approved Williford to look into the issuance of the tax notes; however, Williford stated that his company would gather information, ask for bids from banks as to the interest rates they would offer, and then would report back to the court before June 10th. Until this date, his company and the bond counselor would be working on a contingency fee only.
The debt service fee for the tax notes is estimated at $85,000 to $95,000. The cost for repayment on the taxpayers would be approximately $0.0659/$100 value or more simply stated approximately $48.65 on the average $70,000 home, according to County Auditor Nina Cox.Cox stated that she personally was bothered by the tax as a taxpayer who lives in town.
“If you want my honest opinion, this additional 6-7¢ tax increase (per $100 valuation) bothers me as a taxpayer,” said Cox. “I know you all need the money and the roads need work, but it bothers me.”
Williford stated to the court that a public hearing on the matter was not required by statute, but that it would be up to the court how they would like to handle it, with or without a public hearing. When questioned after the meeting of the court, County Judge Ray West stated that he felt a public hearing would be necessary.
“It wouldn’t be fair to do this without a public hearing,” said West. “The public has got to have some say on this, it comes down to whether the taxpayers are willing to take this $50 ‘pop’ for the average $70,000 home.”
An audience member stated during the meeting that “if you don’t have a public hearing, you will still hear from the public.”
The matter of these tax notes will be added to the agenda for further discussion in future meetings, most likely the next meeting of the court on May 13th, at 9:00 a.m. in the commissioners’ court room.
Although most do not like additional taxation, Williford pointed out that this is an optimal time to issue tax notes, getting the most out of the money raised due to interest rates being so low.
“This is an extremely cheap time to do financing,” said Williford.
Commissioner Precinct 2 Joel Kelton agreed, stating, “If we were going to, this would be our window of opportunity to do this.”
According to Williford, a reasonable expectation would be that 85% of the money funded by the tax notes would be spent in the first three years. Kelton stated that it wouldn’t take long to spend that amount of money on paving projects. Cox also stated that commissioners hoped to put money into a fund for emergencies, such as replacing older infrastructure of items like the aging air conditioning at the Brown County Jail.
In other matters on Monday’s agenda:
*Commissioners took no action on implementing a burn ban.
*Becky Caffey, Brown County Jail Administrator, asked the county to reject all sealed bids received for food service for the jail. Four sealed bids were received and later rejected because Caffey and the court along with other Brown County Sheriff’s Office officials felt the bids were not going to save the county money. She asked the court to allow her to pick items by the best price due to exclusion under section 262.024(d) of the Local Government Code to determine a supplier. The contract for food services has to be put to bid during an interval (such as 2 years for example) established by the court. This interval will be discussed at the next meeting according to Judge West. Caffey also reported that the jail inmate count was 160 as of Monday morning.
* Commissioners Court Administrative Assistant Amy Hamrick received approval to advertise a request for bids for crushed caliche and crushed limestone including freight.
*District Attorney Micheal Murray received approval of a resolution to submit application to the Office of the Attorney General, Crime Victim Services Division as well as designate the authorized official for the Victim Coordinator and Liaison Grant. Mechail Cox currently holds this position.
*Commissioners approved a land imaging project using a DIR (Department of Information Resources) contract to digitize a large amount of records held in the county clerk’s office. According to County Clerk Sharon Ferguson, there are approximately 10 books needing to be imaged for digital access. These books contain approximately 7000-10,000 documents each that need to be archived. Ferguson stated that she would start with digitizing 10 years worth, and continue as funds were available to complete more. The work would be completed by Scantiva, which is part of the parent company Cogniserve and would cost approximately $147,000, but will save the county approximately $47,000. Current records back to 1992 have been digitized according to Ferguson, and this project would start with the 1982-1992 volumes. These records as they become digitized would be accessible online in the near future.
“I’d like to go back to sovereignty with the project, but we’ve got so much to do, that I don’t think I could get it all done in my lifetime,” said Ferguson.
*Ferguson also received approval for new employee Erica Lewis to be hired, start date May 13th, at beginning clerk’s salary. Lewis will be replacing Rhonda Earp and will give the clerk’s office a full staff.
*Ferguson reported that her office was recently audited by the State and “no mistakes were found.” This was a routine audit, which was performed earlier than Ferguson had expected. She stated that she was very pleased at how well the audit turned out.
