During their work session Tuesday afternoon the five town commissioners learned about the debt model Ted Cole with Davenport & Company that he and Chief Financial Officer Aileen Staples have been constructing. It will keep track of the town’s debt and provide information about future borrowing or bonds and how well the debt is being paid.
Wake Forest has an AAA rating with Standard & Poor and an AA1, second highest, with Moody’s, ratings which will give it the best rates when selling bonds from the 2014 referendum. Cole said they, he and Staples, plan to ask a third rating company, Fitch, for a confidential rating this spring.
The last three years have all been positive for the town, Cole said, and it has a sustainable budget.
The town’s current debt principal is $26 million but will be reduced each year as will the $4.8 million in debt service this year.
The town’s projects – completing the South White Streetscape, purchasing SunTrust bank, repairing streets, adding a fiber network and others – will add $32 million but at the same time the town will pay down $11 million.
Looking at Cole’s graphs and tables, Commissioner Brian Pate asked for the maximum the town will have for debt service and Cole said it will never go over $7 million. “That’s the number I was looking for. I want to make sure we are not overleveraged.”
“We want to make sure we are ready for the next downturn.”
Staples told the board she and town staff have been working on the town’s reserves, its fund balances, “so we are ready to go back to the bond market. Interest rates now are lower than we anticipated.”
At the end, Town Manager Kip Padgett noted that when the town was asking residents to approve the 2014 bond referendum they were told taxes might have to go up 2 cents. That never happened because of conservative and careful money management.
The commissioners also looked over the proposed special event policy and discussed the need for a class, Serve Safely, that will make people serving alcohol at the events able to notice when someone should not have more.
Parking is becoming an issue in the Renaissance Plaza now that most shops are full, Downtown Director Lisa Hayes said, and the Wake Forest Farmers Market may have to move its Saturday sales. Commissioner Liz Simpers wanted to use the chamber of commerce and the depot parking lots with the market in one and parking in the other. “I was trying to find a spot where it was easy to park but you’d have to walk a bit” and go by other shops. But that, Saturday morning, is when many people come to town and want to park in those spots, Pate said.
“We are trying to house them on town property,” Hayes said. “They want to stay downtown.
It was decided to suggest the market use the employee parking lot behind town hall where they have moved when other events had to use Renaissance Plaza.
After a discussion about the town accepting private streets for maintenance, it was decided a super majority of the affected homeowners would have to agree to the process.
The commissioners, minus Mayor Vivian Jones who had another obligation, went into a closed session to discuss suits filed against the town by two former employees in the U.S. District Court’s Eastern District.
Human Resources Director Virginia Jones replied to a query with this: “Steven Meyer and Gregory (Blake) Haley are two former Engineering Construction Inspectors who were terminated on October 31, 2014. Mitzi Franklin is our Senior human Resources Consultant and she is still employed with the town. Ms. Franklin did an internal investigation into the circumstances/facts that ultimately led to the town’s decision to terminate Meyer and Haley.”
Each man is suing the Town of Wake Forest, Jones, Franklin, Director of Engineering Eric Keravuori, former town manager Mark Williams and former deputy town manager Roe O’Donnell.
Wednesday Padgett said there was no vote taken when the commissioners came out of the closed session.
