Starkville aldermen approved a $2.7 million-maximum bond package last week that will help workers tend to a growing list of road, drainage and access projects in the next three years.
The board previously greenlit an intent notice moving forward with the bond issuance in February as aldermen supporting the matter championed the financing’s ability to knock out a large chunk of Starkville’s growing to-do list without necessitating a tax increase.
Included in the project list are all planned street improvements for this and next year — a combined $820,000 exercise — and allocations for numerous other efforts: $275,000 for the proposed Russell Street redesign; $175,000 for drainage projects in the Huntington Park subdivision and along Northside Drive; $315,000 for the Safe Routes to School program and other sidewalk connectivity projects; a $200,000 South Montgomery Street signal and traffic flow study; $75,000 to redesign Lincoln Green; $75,000 for improvements for Lafayette Street’s streetscape and Americans with Disabilities Act compliance; and $75,000 to repave the public lot behind Starkville Cafe.
The project list also includes a combined $630,000 allocation for other projects to be identified later in Starkville’s seven wards.
The combined to-do list is projected to cost about $2.64 million, but that total does not include $200,000 for a two-phase project at the Starkville Sportsplex.
Last year, officials pitched a five-phase, $660,000 project to increase access points to the hub of the Starkville Parks and Recreation Department and help solve traffic and mass transit issues along Lynn Lane.
Tentative plans would add a traffic signal near the entrance, connect spillover parking with a minor road and change the drop-off location for Starkville-MSU Area Rapid Transit riders.
Starkville is still awaiting confirmation from auditors that it can expend 2 percent food and beverage tax monies for the project, Mayor Parker Wiseman said.
“It looks to be a capital improvement benefiting parks that we’re qualified for, so it doesn’t seem there should be an issue,” he said. “It’s probably a conversation we’ll have after auditors deliver our report.”
The influx of cash does not mean the city will knock out its project list immediately. Some projects are ready for bid advertising, City Engineer Edward Kemp said, while others are still in the design phase. Others simply will take time, he said. For example, the work associated with the South Montgomery Street study could take more than a year.
While workers can only tend to a certain amount of projects at once, Kemp said he was optimistic a majority of the list will be completed by the end of 2016.
Starkville will use a three-prong approach to service the bonds’ related debt: It will divert budgeted improvement monies, reallocate other expiring bond payments and utilize organic budgetary growth.
Wiseman estimated it will cost the city about $200,000-$250,000 per year to service the debt. The bonds financing street repairs are 12-year issuances — about the expected life of a road — while 20-year bonds will fund drainage and other projects.
The primary source of payments in the first two years are the funds that would have been designated for annual street improvements. About $387,000 of this fiscal year’s $540,000 street improvement budget will be placed into a reserve fund to help make payments, Wiseman said. The next two fiscal years’ worth of capital improvement allocations will also follow since the city will have bond proceeds and not need to make additional allocations.
Starkville will again allocate its full street improvement budget in FY 2017-2018.
In subsequent years, revenue growth and monies previously utilized for expiring bonds will help cover the long-term payments.
Additional monies will surface in the coming fiscal years as $100,000 allocations for comprehensive planning efforts will not renew in FY 2016-2017. Also, payments on 2008 and 2009 bonds will expire about the same time.
“What the program is designated to do is provide more infrastructure improvements over the next three years than the current budget would have been able to make. After that period, we pick right back up where we were with the annual program,” Wiseman said. “(Once other bonds expire), we’ll have significantly more revenue for a substantial improvement project. A combination of rolling debt cycles and a sound annual improvement plan are both needed in this case. You need both, and you don’t need everything programmed on 10- and 12-year cycles. You also want to make sure there’s an adequate annual budget available to do improvements.”
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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