{"id":1929,"date":"2011-06-09T09:45:47","date_gmt":"2011-06-09T13:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/industrial-authority-debts-could-force-lowndes-county-to-raise-taxes.html"},"modified":"2011-06-09T09:45:47","modified_gmt":"2011-06-09T13:45:47","slug":"industrial-authority-debts-could-force-lowndes-county-to-raise-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/industrial-authority-debts-could-force-lowndes-county-to-raise-taxes.html","title":{"rendered":"Industrial Authority debts could force Lowndes County to raise taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"A mil here, a mil there; soon we’re into real money!\n\n<\/a>\nCan the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA)\ncommit we the local taxpayers to a $150 million bond issue\nfor a private company like the\n\nMacon-Bibb County Industrial Authority just did?<\/a>\nMaybe.\n

\nVLCIA has already issued $15 million in bonds for which apparently\n\nthe Lowndes County Commission has committed the county,<\/a>\nthat is, we the taxpayers, to pay the debt service.\nThat comes out of VLCIA’s one mil of dedicated tax income.\nBut according to the\n\nintergovernmental contract<\/a>,\nit’s actually not even just from VLCIA’s current millage:\n

\n\n<\/a>\n

Section 4.4 Security for Contract Payments and for Bonds.<\/H4>\n(a) The obligation of the County to make the payments required pursuant\nto Section 4.1(a) hereof shall be a general obligation of the County for\nwhich its full faith and credit is pledged, and shall be payable from any\nlafully available funds, subject to the Tax Funding Limit. In particular,\nthe County agrees to levy an annual tax on all taxable property located\nwithin its boundaries, as now existent and as the same may be extended,\nat such rate or rates, as limited by the Tax Funding Limit, as and when\nit may be necessary to provide the County with sufficient revenues to\nmake all payments required to be made by the County under this Contract.\n<\/blockquote>\nThe current VLCIA millage is one mil, or about $3 million a year,\ncollected by the county in property taxes and handed over to VLCIA.\n

\nBut VLCIA’s charter says (in\nSection 5<\/a>):\n\n\n

\nThe County of Lowndes is hereby authorized to levy and collect an annual\nad valorem tax not to exceed two (2) mills for developing and promoting\nindustry and agriculture, and is hereby directed to pay to the authority\nall funds derived from such levy to be used for the purposes provided\nherein.\n<\/blockquote>\nThe Tax Funding Limit on VLCIA millage is 2 mils, not 1.\nSo apparently VLCIA can run up debts that require the county to\nincrease VLCIA’s millage, even as far as doubling the current millage.\nThat would be from the current $3 million a year for 1 mil to $6 million\na year for 2 mils.\n

\nCan VLCIA float another bond issue using the same\n\nintergovernmental contract<\/a>?\nI wouldn’t thank so, but I’m not a lawyer.\nCan they refinance the existing bonds within that contract?\nI wouldn’t be surprised.\nSee Section 5.6(b):\n

\nThe Authority may, from time to time, in its sole discretion\nand at its own expense, make any additions, modifications\nor improvements to the Project, which it may deem desirable for its purposes.\n<\/blockquote>\nSo if VLCIA paid attorneys to modify the debt package, i.e., refinance,\nwould the County and we the taxpayers be on the hook for the result?\nAnd given that interest rates are lower now, they could finance\neven more debt.\n

\nWhether VLCIA can do that or not, if interest rates go up on\nthe debt they’ve got, we the taxpayers are stuck\nwith paying for it, even if it requires raising our taxes to do it.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nBrad Lofton may be gone, but we’re stuck with his debts,\n\nwhile he’s busy trying to get Horry County, SC to dedicate tax millage.<\/a>\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mil here, a mil there; soon we’re into real money! Can the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) commit we the local taxpayers to a $150 million bond issue for a private company like the Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority just did? Maybe. VLCIA has already issued $15 million in bonds for which apparently","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,88,178],"tags":[728,8701,4420,91,7,8734,4422,4421,383,180,8749],"class_list":["post-1929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-vlcia","tag-bonds","tag-georgia","tag-interest-rates","tag-lcc","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-property-taxes","tag-refinancing","tag-taxes","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-vlcia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-v7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4356,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929\/revisions\/4356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}