Travis County Commssioners Court
June 15, 2004
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Housing Finance Corporation
Let's call to order the Travis County housing finance corporation. Voting session. 1. Consider approval of contract for Travis County to perform administrative, accounting and clerical services from October 1, 2004 to September 30, 2006, and take appropriate action.
>> hi, good afternoon, I’m harvey Davis, manager of the corporation, with mary may, the assistant manager of the corporation. The corporation in Travis County -- and Travis County have executed a series of contracts over the years for Travis County through our office to provide the accounting and administrative services for the corporations. And the current contract, which was for two years, runs out at the end of this year. And so what we are -- what we are presenting for the board is a new two-year contract. To -- for you all to consider and -- and hopefully approve. The contract is -- is written very similar to the prior contracts. The major difference in this contract is that the fees have gone up for -- for the corporations to pay Travis County. For this current year, the -- the corporations paid a little over $56,000. The new contract provides for the fy '05 years for the corporations to pay $87,845. The reason the fees have gone up is that in our evaluation of what our office does for the corporation, is that we -- we felt a more realistic percentage of our time that is spent on corporation duties is 50%, so we have taken 50% of our budget, less the bank contract fees and certain costs that are directly related to investment to the investment function such as bloomberg. And 50% of that and that's what we have in the contract. The prior contracts we have used a factor of 31%. So that is the major change and again, like, in the prior contracts the -- the -- each corporation pays in -- pays its share of the fee based on it's ending fund balance as a ratio of the total fund balances of all of the corporations. And this is the way that it's been done in all -- again in all of the prior contracts. Finally, if -- if -- if the board does approve this contract, it is not on the -- on the Commissioners court agenda. I would put it on next week's agenda. Seems to me more realistic to put it on then because it would make sense to put it on the consent.
>> any question from the board? I assume that all of the other -- the housing authority that Travis County has. Do most of the, at least the urban counties, do they have the same kind of subject that we have?
>> yes. Yes for like the city of Austin has -- has Austin housing --
>> I know the city of Austin does but I mean counties. I mean does tarrant county have the same kind of programs and --
>> tarrant county, dallas county, harris county, bexar county, el paso -- remember it's el paso county or the city of el paso, but most of the large jurisdictions in the state have housing finance corporation.
>> how do we compare fee-wise to -- to other counties.
>> well, the different counties goes housing finance corporations are they vary in activity and function. Several of them have staff members and finance it a little bit different way more out of directly from the housing finance corporation and the staff actually works for the housing finance corporation, not a shared employee situation, so it's a little bit harder to -- to.
>> to directly compare and to be honest with you, I’m not real familiar with what the different costs are staff-wise for different --
>> effectively what we are doing is just basically coming up with a -- with a user fee, I mean, what it takes for us to operate and trying to recoup the cost staff wise from the county staff-wise to -- to how the fees are basically -- predicated on that, correct?
>> yes, yes.
>> barbara, you said that you would have the contract ready for us next meeting, harvey.
>> the contract is ready this meeting. In your backup. We would put on the --
>> on the agenda.
>> we would have it on court's agenda next week.
>> our friends at the Travis County Commissioners court.
>> yes.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> moved and seconded that we approve item no. 1, any further discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Please show director Biscoe gone for the entirety of the meeting, for those who did not get the message this morning, judge and director Biscoe has an important meeting of the tceq on behalf of Travis County and he will rejoin us when he has concluded his business. So move on to item no. 2. 2. Approve minutes of board of directors meetings of February 24 and March 2, 2004.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> moved and seconded to approve the minutes, any further discussion? All in favor? That passes unanimously. 3. Consider results of compliance audit of rosemont at heather bend apartment, and take appropriate action.
>> this -- the corporation issued $15 million in private activity bonds and -- in October of 2002. For the construction of -- of what is now called rose mont at heather bend, used to be heather wild villas. It is located either in the city of Pflugerville or right at the city of Pflugerville. I initiated a compliance audit the early part of may of this year. The main reason that I selected health e.r.wild to audit is that -- is that they have -- southwest housing, the developer of this project, has -- has come and -- and wants the corporation to issue new bonds for another project which is on the -- on the -- on the agenda, so it made sense that we would go out and see what kind of job they are doing on their compliance work. And I’m happy to report they -- the compliance audit was -- was really excellent. They are doing a fine job. I have found no exceptions, this is tax exempt, we issued the tax exempt bonds on this project. They also acquired four percent tax credits from the Texas department of housing and community affairs. We have issued bonds like this on several projects in recent years. I have found a trend that compliance issues are much less, it seems to be on these projects. The developers seem to know what they are doing and are very diligent in addressing the compliance work obligations that they have. There are -- there are a couple of -- of requests that the -- that the developer has asked. One was that -- that they are using the -- the Texas department of housing and community affairs income certification and would -- would like to continue to use that income certification in lieu of the income certification that is -- that is attached to the regulatory agreement. This is an issue that -- that the board has approved on several past situations. So that was -- that's one change. The second change is that they would like -- that they have to supply us a -- a -- a compliance report. And the regulatory group provides that that report be submitted monthly. They would like to submit the report on a quarterly basis. The reason they -- the reason they would like to do that on a quarterly basis, that it would be on the same cycle that we have to submit reports to -- to Texas department of housing and community affairs.
>> most of our bonds do comply for quarterly compliance report. So I would support their -- their doing it on a quarterly basis. I have -- my thinking that it is just additional administrative work for them and it would be -- it would be -- would not harm the -- the tax exempt status of the bonds. This has been gone over with bond council. Band council on this project was vinson and elkins. Bond council, they are fine with these two changes. I would recommend to the board that they approve these two requests. We don't have any regulatory issues with this client. Let's say that were on change. Could the board always go back to monthly if for some reason we needed to keep a closer watch on the compliance history of this complex?
>> yes. I mean, I -- I don't see any reason --
>> the regulatory agreement, the bore reis a -- borrower is a part of that, if we are going to amend it, take both parties approval to amend it back would also [indisernible] when we make that amendment, maybe give the option to the issuer that the Travis County housing finance corporation to flip it back to monthly rather than requiring -- normally it wouldn't be that way, but we could write that in --
>> at this point he see no reason that we should not respond to the requests that are being made in terms of being consistent with what they are already turning into the state of Texas.
>> I do not. Sure don't.
>> I would then move based on what we have seen in terms of the compliance history that we -- that we take note of and accept the compliance audit results from rosemont at heather bend and that we agree to the two changes in the regulatory grem as recommended by mr. Davis and -- agreement as recommended by mr. Davis and our council. Moved and seconded by Commissioner Davis and myself. Any further discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you. Item no. 4. 4. Take appropriate action to approve resolution authorizing the issuance, sale and delivery of variable rate demand multifamily housing revenue bonds (rosemont at old manor apartments) series 2004 and subordinate multifamily housing revenue refunding bonds (rosemont at old manor apartments); approving the form and substance of and authorizing the execution and delivery of documents and instruments necessary to carry out the financing of such multifamily rental residential development; and containing other provisions relating to the subject. Thank you so much, mr. --
>> olbigatory language.
>> all right.
>> this is the transaction, the public hearing was last Tuesday and craig alter with the developer is here if you have any questions. It's -- this is just the formal approval of the documentation for the -- for the financing and -- and I think that he pretty well covered the specifics of the transaction last week. I don't know if any of you all have any questions or anything?
>> I -- I would like to move approval of this. I had an opportunity to visit on southwest housing, the product, and -- by all means, that -- by no stretch of the imagination, they definitely do good, quality construction and maintenance and operation and management of those facilities is -- is something that I think is long overdue for this community, I really feel good about this particular project. I would like to go ahead and move forward with this. By -- by -- by making a motion to approve item no. 4.
>> second.
>> moved and seconded. Are there any further discussions by members of the board.
>> I would like to add a couple of things. One is the regulatory agreement is -- has been written so that -- so that they can use the tdhca form and they report quarterly instead of monthly. So we won't have those issues. And also -- also I understand that the -- that the annual fee is -- is guaranteed by fannie mae so that we have a -- on a few occasions we've had some issues with developers being able to pay the annual fee. But the fanny may is also backing the annual fee, so we have more assurance that fee being paid.
>> one of the things, lad patillo left town this morning, he called me this afternoon, reviewed the documents and structure and was very comfortable with the transaction.
>> I second the motion related to the folks that are doing this project. We've had excellent, excellent working relationship up in Pflugerville, it was a joy every step of the project. And [indiscernible] it's also after the fact [multiple voices] it's been moved and seconded on item no. 4. Any further discussion? All in favor? That passes unanimously. We will have a companion item once we get back into the Commissioners court.
>> can we assume that might be on consent.
>> we will get back to it, we have to get back to it.
>> okay.
>> second.
>> seconded, Gerald, to -- to adjourn.
>> adjourn.
>> all in favor? That passes unanimously, thanks, we will be there in just a moment.
Last Modified: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 8:02 AM