By Karen Middleton
Refinancing a 1998 revenue bond should net the Limestone County Water and Sewer Authority nearly $300,000.
Interim General Manager Tammy Smith recommended refunding the bonds after discussing the matter with auditor Cecil Armstrong Jr. and Scott Bammon of Thornton Farish, Inc., the authority’s bond agent.
“It will save us nearly $300,000 over the life of the bond,” Smith said. “I recommend we put the money in the Debt Service Reserve Fund.”
Smith said the money should go into the reserve fund because two of the authority’s bond insurers have been downgraded, requiring that the authority make monthly payments into the Debt Service Reserve Fund.
“By utilizing this opportunity, it will reduce the amount we will have to fund monthly,” Smith said.
In other business, the water board approved:
• Re-sleeving the elevator jack in the Customer Service building at a cost of $23,225. “We have no choice,” Smith said. “It is a state requirement. If we approve it now, the company (Bagby Elevator) said work could be done by the end of the year.”
Smith said she hoped the work speeded up the notoriously slow elevator in the old Union Planters Bank building where Customer Service is now located.
• Designating Lincoln National Life Insurance Co. as the authority’s group life and short-term disability.
• Schedule of holidays and meetings for 2010.
• Capitalization policy in which any individual fixed asset item should be capitalized if it is valued at $1,500 or more, rather than the present $500 or more. Any item under this threshold must be expensed. Smith said this change was recommended by auditors, who have nearly completed the fiscal 2009 audit.
• Board Chairman Mark Yarbrough made a motion that the authority, which saved money because he and board member Paul Wilson did not take payment for their board duties, use the money to buy $100 Walmart gift cards for each employee as a bonus. The authority will have to add about $275 to that amount to pay for the cards.
