Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 30
30.
consider and take appropriate action on the following: a, authorization for tnr to begin submitting agenda requests to use $10.3 million of 2001 bond proposition 1 project savings for current and new unfunded projects that meet the related bond issuance statements (funds 460,465,468,471, 508 and 512) legal requirements; and b, consider and take appropriate action on termination of the 2001 bond fm 973 pedestrian way project.
>> thank you, judge.
this is a continuation of an item that we talked about, about two weeks ago.
at that time, we were thinking that we had $10.3 million.
I want to correct that number, it's actually $9.75 million in savings from the 2001 bond program, proposition 1 for roads and bridges.
what we had proposed to do is to request your approval to use these savings in the precincts where they were -- where they were achieved and -- and in addition to that, we wanted to delete one project from the list of promises that were identified in the 2001 bond referendum, that particular project was f.m.
973 pedestrian way.
we have found another way to get that project completed.
it's through the city of Austin's 2010 bond referendum.
they had specifically earmarked $500,000 for a trail project in this part of the county.
so that's how we would propose to get that done.
at the meeting, a few weeks ago, Commissioner Eckhardt brought up two questions.
she had asked have we used bond savings like this on other projects that weren't included in the original bond referendum.
yes, they have been.
you will see in your backup a very extensive list of projects that we were able to complete from savings in the 84 and 97 bond referendum and then the other part was using -- well, I'll defer to her now on that other piece that you had asked about, Commissioner Eckhardt.
>> I appreciate the information.
>> the question was regarding the outstanding debt related to the 2001 bond program.
and what I went back and did is looked at each individual issuance and separated it out by proposition.
as you know, we've -- we've very actively done some refundings in the past as well to take advantage of the lower interest rates, so then we had to go through and actually map out the original issuance of that into the refundings.
and I've done that and have very detailed sheets that detail that.
to answer your question, though, the principal that's owed -- principle that's owed on the 2001 bond program using assumptions on proportionality is approximately $127 million.
as far as the local projects, prop 1, it's 45 million.
and then if you were to put enter into that and what we owe still in principal and interest, the number is about 172, 173 million and prop 1 for roads is approximately 56 million.
so I'm happy to answer any questions.
I will say that we did meet with bond counsel.
we were already exploring defeasing debt on prop 3.
if you will recall prop 3 is the state projects for -- we will continue that process, we are waiting on information from txdot.
I have also talked to our financial advisor about in the future preparing the best defeasement proposal possible for the county.
as far as prop 1, our recommendation would be that the Commissioners court use those savings for other appropriate projects instead of turning around and issuing additional debt.
we would propose that we would use the amounts, the proceeds that we have now as voted by the voters as proposed by t.n.r.
and like I said before, we have recently done some refundings and that makes the -- the defeasing of debt a little bit or a lot less economically viable.
>>
>> [multiple voices]
>> I'm sorry.
to put that in plain lingo, it's because the rent on that money is now very low because of our refinancing.
>> that's right.
>> so I guess what I'm trying to do here is to make sure that t.n.r.
has the ability to come back to the court on a case-by-case basis and utilize these particular funds from the 2001 bond on those particular projects that was within these particular precincts.
>> that is our intention, Commissioner.
>> I would like to move approval of that.
>> second.
>> remind me what the interest rate was on the 2000 --
>> the original interest rate.
well, it varies widely.
the original interest rate on some of the debt that we issued back in 2002 was about 5%.
but we've refunded that since and it's way less, I can get that information to you --
>> okay.
>> we refunded that.
>> we did.
last fall is when we refunded a lot of these as well.
we have very low interest rates right now.
>> down
>> [indiscernible] percentage.
>> I'm thinking it's less than that.
I can't answer off the top of my head.
I can get you that information.
>> any more discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
thank you all very much.
>> thank you.
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