Next Tuesday the Wake Forest commissioners are expected to approve issuing $4.33 million in general obligation public improvement bonds to finance the first of the street, park and greenway improvements town voters approved last fall.
The Gazette will furnish a list of those projects next week. The full meeting packet with the information was not complete by press time this week.
The long-needed Franklin Street/N.C. 98 bypass traffic signal will be one step closer Tuesday as the commissioners are expected to approve a funding agreement with the state Department of Transportation for that signal.
At the start of the meeting the commissioners and audience will hear a presentation about choices which must be made as Wake County frames another transportation plan, and Mayor Vivian Jones indicated last week she would be asking the commissioners to tell her what their choices would be.
The commissioners are also asking residents and neighbors to come and tell them what they want or do not want in next year’s budget and the five-year capital improvement plan. There will be public hearings on these two topics at the beginning of the board’s regular business session, which begins at 7 p.m. in the second floor meeting room in Wake Forest Town Hall.
The commissioners will be asked to consider and vote on two planning requests: the 61-unit Franklin Street Townhomes which were recommended seven to two by the planning board last week and the 49-lot subdivision on Wait Avenue requested by Thomas and Michael Bolus which was unanimously recommended. A third planning item is a collection of amendments to the Unified Development Ordinance which was also unanimously recommended by the planning board.
The commissioners will probably appoint a new member to the Cultural Resources Advisory Board and approve two requests for the May 2 Meet in the Street – closing several streets on that day and allowing for public consumption of alcohol to allow for the beer garden on private property. They will also amend the town’s fee schedule to include the cost of the memorial wall plaques at the new columbarium at Wake Forest Cemetery, approve two updated county plans for emergency operations and hazard mitigation, approve a design contract for improvements to the Smith Creek Greenway and approve a petition for contiguous annexation for the new Huntington Spring senior apartments on South Franklin Street.
There are two actions requested for the Forestville Bridge replacement project which is planned to be done from April through August of this year. The board need to convey a drainage easement to DOT and will be asked to approve an additional lane on the bridge over Sanford Creek.
Also, there will be a proclamation recognizing Arbor Day, which will be celebrated Saturday, March 21, in Wake Forest.
Local Government Commission sells town’s bonds
Wake Forest residents might be surprised to learn that the town does not sell its own general obligation bonds that voters have approved: the state Local Government Commission is responsible for the actual sale of the bonds on the town’s behalf.
That does not mean the town’s financial director, Aileen Staples, has nothing to do. She has been working on the bond referendum and the resulting bond issue for more than two years: assembling the list of projects with projected costs, paring and refining the list with the town commissioners, meeting all the statutory deadlines set by the LGC and assembling all the necessary information at each step. Staples and Town Manager Mark Williams will be meeting soon with a representative of Standard & Poor’s bond rating company here in town and later traveling to meet with other rating agencies.
The LGC is in charge of all stages of any borrowing the town – and all municipal governments in North Carolina – undertakes. Before it can borrow money, a town has to have approval from the LGC, which decides whether the amount is adequate and reasonable for the project and whether the town can be reasonably expected to afford to repay that amount.
If that sounds like overregulation to some, it has kept the state’s municipalities, for the most part, financially sound and thriving.
As Andrew Teras, an associate director of Standard & Poor’s rating agency, said recently: “the influence and oversight of the Local Government Commission is a major reason why Nrth Carolina local government issuers have been able to weather this recession to this point. North Carolina’s oversight model is one of the strongest of any state.”
North Carolina has the largest percentage of local governments who have a bond rating of AAA when compared to other states, and Wake Forest is one of those governments. Additionally, Tarheel towns and cities find it easier to sell their bonds compared to the national average.
Many attribute this financial health to the LGC, which was established by the General Assembly in 1931 during the Depression. In 1933, 62 North Carolina counties, 152 cities and towns and about 200 special taxing districts were in default on the principal or the interest or both of their outstanding debt obligations.
Wake Forest never defaulted on its debts during the Depression, perhaps because of pinch-penny town governance, but it did get into difficulties in later years. In the late 1970s and early 1980s the town’s property tax and other income did not pay all the bills. The commissioners covered the budget shortfall by transferring funds from the electric department into the general fund. For some years the electric fund transfer was 28 percent of the town’s budget. Eventually the LGC stepped in and said the town could not hold a planned bond referendum, balanced the budget and made provision for reserve funds.
The LGC also oversees annual financial reporting and auditing of local governments, and it provides financial assistance to towns and cities.
