During a Special Meeting of the County Commissioners Court on July 9, Jose Landeros, Director of Strategic Development, presented the recommendations of the Bond Advisory Committee for future debt issuances.
The Committee consists of ten individuals who were appointed by the County Judge and Commissioners. We published a report back in January when the first five were appointed (two of whom hold only a high school diploma).
According to the County’s financial consultants, up to $500 million worth of new debt may be issued without putting the County’s bond rating at risk.
Landeros explained that $195 million can be issued without raising taxes, but going for $500 million would result in an increase of 3 cents per $100 of property valuation, costing an additional $60 per year to the owner of a home worth $200,000.
Commissioner Iliana Holguin, the only member of the Commissioners Court who cares about the plight of taxpayers, wants to limit the debt issuance to $195 million in order to prevent a tax hike.
But the unelected Bond Advisory Committee, hand-picked by the County Commissioners Court, recommends issuing $188 million in certificates of obligation, which do not require voter approval, and $294 million in general obligation bonds, which would be put to the voters in November, for a total of $482 million.
This debt would be amortized over a period of 25 years and cost the taxpayers $903.6 million in debt servicing, according to Landeros.
To put that in perspective, the County owes about $250 million in principle and interest on its current debt and the new issuance would more than triple that figure in a single stroke!
Judge Samaniego commented, “We are very sensitive about increasing the taxes. There might be that situation, obviously.”
With all due respect, he has no more compunction about issuing this debt than he does about purchasing a can of Sprite at Walmart, and Commissioner Coronado cannot even contain his excitement about spending as much of our money as possible!
Samaniego, Stout, and Coronado repeatedly stated that it is not for them to decide whether to issue the debt because it will be up to the voters.
But the voters would not get a say on the proposed $195 million in certificates of obligation. (Apparently the court learned nothing from the successful petition drive to kill a proposed $346 million CO issuance for UMC or from the political backlash resulting from the City’s issuance of hundreds of millions in CO debt during the reign of Tommy Gonzalez).
The County’s deceptive outreach meetings (we attended one of them) and the recommendations of the Bond Advisory Committee are clearly intended to provide political cover, but we are simply not that stupid.
The Commissioners Court, with the exception of Holguin, is maneuvering to ram $488 million in new debt down our throats and raise our taxes in order to fund a galaxy of non-essential pork projects, like $5.3 million for an Ascarate Park Walking Trail, $12 million for Coyote Park “improvements,” and $17 million for Gallegos Park “improvements.”
The list of projects is very long.
This is the same Commissioners Court that recently voted to raise their own salaries and increase our property tax to the rollback rate.
As for the proposed $294 million GO bond, Samaniego, Stout, and Coronado repeatedly insisted that the voters would get to decide, but we believe it is reckless for the County to place such a ruinous proposition before the voters at all (and we can only imagine how the ballot would be worded).
The Commissioners Court must make a final decision about how much debt to issue by August 19 so the matter will likely be taken up at the next meeting, on July 29.
Please write to the Judge and County Commissioners and tell them not to drown us in more debt and never to issue any certificates of obligation.
countyjudge@epcounty.com; commissioner1@epcounty.com; commissioner2@epcounty.com;; commissioner3@epcounty.com; commissioner4@epcounty.com