Bond Resolutions Earn County Commissioners’ Approval

Paulding County officials will soon issue new bonds aimed at obtaining better interest rates over bonds that were issued a few years ago.

County commissioners at their business session Thursday approved two resolutions to issue bonds. One resolution will see the county issue Water and Sewerage Revenue Refunding Bonds in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $8,500,000. The bonds will be payable solely from the revenues of the county’s water and sewerage system for the purpose of advance refunding the county’s outstanding 2004-series Water and Sewerage Revenue Bonds, and to pay the costs in connection with the issuance of the bonds.

“This sale is only to refinance the existing principal for the water and sewer issue from 2004,” County Finance Director Tabitha Pollard said during the county commission’s Thursday morning work session. “The reason for refinancing this is to obtain a better interest rate, and it will be a savings of approximately $500,000 over the term of the bonds.”

“This is just like refinancing your house—you still owe the same amount of money, but your monthly payment goes down?” asked Commissioner Tommie Graham.

“That’s correct,” Pollard responded.

The other bond resolution approved by commissioners will have the county’s Industrial Building Authority authorizing the issuance of IBA Taxable Revenue Refunding Bonds (Industrial Park Project), Series 2012A, in a principal amount not to exceed $2,500,000; and IBA Tax-exempt Revenue Refunding Bonds (Water Treatment Facility Projects), Series 2012B, in a principal amount not to exceed $5,600,000.

Like the water and sewerage bonds, Pollard said the new IBA bonds are aimed at reducing the county’s payment on the bonds—an estimated savings of about $500,000.

Blake Swafford, who heads the county IBA, told commissioners IBA officials have spent most of their money on the industrial park project. Nearly $1.8 million has gone to three separate property acquisitions, two of which are the Dallas Industrial Park and the Paulding Commerce Park; the third was associated with the film studio in Hiram.

The remaining funds, Swafford added, are earmarked for structure construction in the Paulding Commerce Park, which will start construction before the end of the calendar year.

Responding to a question from Commissioner Todd Pownall, Swafford said the IBA bonds will be paid with proceeds from the sale of land in the industrial parks.

Pollard said that so far, a portion of the county’s general fund has gone toward paying those IBA bonds—a fact Pownall cited before voting against the IBA bond issue, though he was the only commissioner to do so.

“They’ve had that [$2.5 million] since 2003, and the taxpayers have been paying that. I made a comment at an [IBA] meeting and talked about paying that down or paying that off with the money that was held and was not used at the time,” Pownall said before casting his vote. “Basically, the taxpayers have been paying that for nine years.

“I agree with refinancing what we need to refinance, because the rates are good and that’s what we need to do. But I don’t agree with that $2.5 million because that’s been sitting for about eight years before any of it was used,” Pownall added. “It was kind of used on several different individual projects, and my concern is that the taxpayers are going to have to continue to pay that payment on that particular bond.”

The bond issues will come back in front of commissioners in a few weeks following the sale of the bonds. Commissioners then will see the final dollar amounts involved as opposed to the not-to-exceed amount seen in the initial resolutions, Pollard said.

Earlier Thursday, commissioners learned that they would not be immediately considering a resolution that would establish a voter referendum on whether to allow package sales of alcohol on Sundays, route: {:controller=>"articles", :action=>"show", :id=>"sunday-package-sales-proposal-on-boc-s-agenda"} -->, as they learned that