Jan 27, 2014 3 min read

A famous quotation attributed to American founding father Benjamin Franklin reads, “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

On the topic of the Washington County Sinking Fund annual meeting, the quote might be tweaked to read, “Nothing is certain but debt and taxes.”

According to the Investopedia website, the term “sinking fund” refers to a means of repaying money that was borrowed through a bond issue.

When Washington County property owners receive their county tax bills, 1.25 of the total 24.9 mills on each dollar of assessed valuation is dedicated to retiring the county’s indebtedness, so the bills do indeed couple debt and taxes.

The sinking fund meeting is set aside as a time, however brief, for the commissioners, treasurer and controller to officially recognize the county’s debt and the interest taxpayers have been – and will be – paying each year.

In 2014, taxpayers will be footing the bill for $3,265,329 in debt service on the county’s total debt of $53,040,413, the last of which is scheduled to be paid off in 2033.

To put this figure in perspective, at their last meeting in December, the commissioners adopted a county budget of $80.9 million for 2014.

The county accrued no new debt through bond issues in 2013, but restructured some existing debt to save taxpayers nearly $700,000 in interest payments in the refinancing of its 10-year-old general obligation bonds.

Interest rates in October were averaging about 2.6 percent to pay for borrowing related to the conversion of the old jail to the Family Court Center and other projects.

The county’s most recent bond issue includes $3 million worth of new borrowing for equipment at the county airport, repairs to the Justice Center nonpublic parking garage near the county jail, restoration of the courthouse and the purchase of $1.3 million in software upgrades for the county property tax revenue department.

Last year, the county’s bond rating was upgraded to Aa2, or high grade, from A+, or upper medium grade.

“The Aa2 rating reflects the county’s solid financial profile with healthy general fund reserves, ongoing expansion in the county’s tax base and economy supported by its location atop the Marcellus Shale and deeper Utica Shale natural gas deposits and a manageable debt position,” according to Moody’s Investors Services Inc. of San Francisco.

Challenges to maintaining its financial stability include “ensuring enterprise funds remain self-supporting, management of employee salary and retirement costs and a court-mandated (real estate) reassessment to consume $7 million of county funds.”

The reassessment contract with Tyler Technologies of Moraine, Ohio, is being paid for over a schedule of several years without the county having to float yet another bond issue.

County Finance Director Roger Metcalfe said Thursday that he does not expect the county to restructure debt until 2017, when general obligation bonds currently totaling $17,900,336 of outstanding debt can be refinanced if conditions are favorable.