Amarillo City Council approves of bond sales to cover drainage projects

The Amarillo City Council during its Tuesday regular meeting unanimously approved the issuance and sale of bonds and the completion of capital projects that are now prioritized due to last year’s flooding, which affected many residents of Amarillo.

This issuance of bonds is funded by a rate increase from last October to pay for needed infrastructure upgrades. The city is selling these bonds to issue more than $39 million in debt to fund these projects.

Laura Storrs, assistant city manager, spoke about the need to sell the bonds and the benefits to the city.

“Some of these projects are smaller, and some areas see construction starting soon, but many larger projects take up to a couple of years to complete,” Storrs said. "Rather than making a small increase over the next three to five years, the council decided to tackle these projects."

The drainage bonds that were issued Tuesday had only accrued about half a year of an increased rate, so the city decided to scale back the number of bonds issued. According to Storrs, later in the year, the city will issue the remaining $3-$4 million, which will not impact the speed of the projects' completion.

In another action, certificates of obligation were also sold to complete work on an airplane hangar at the Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport. These certificates are taxable due to revenue received from one of the airport's tenants.

“There are a few things that go into the planning of the bond sales, but the biggest one is the timing of when the dollars are needed,” she said. “In this case, especially with the airport, we have a great plan in place, and we are ready to go to complete the project.”

Storrs said that while the property tax rate backs the certificates, it does not pay for the debt issued by the airport. “This money will be paid for by the airport’s tenet for the new project. It is favorable to do these projects to support our tenants to keep them here locally without any taxpayer funding,” Storrs said.

Mayor Cole Stanley said that the issuance of drainage projects was necessary to protect residents from flood events like those that occurred last year.

Related: Residents near Greenways lose homes due to playa lake flooding

“Thirty-nine million dollars is a lot of money for us to try to implement to put into pumps and everything else that goes along with our prevention of flooding, so this was a very necessary way of providing this needed upgrade to our residents who are already paying for it,” Stanley said. "We have to understand the difference between good debt and bad debt. This allows our future councils to have a revenue source to take care of these long-term maintenance issues.”

Stanley said that he is greatly confident that this debt issuance will greatly improve the infrastructure to deal with local flooding.

“We were borderline on that 100-year flood last year. Now, with getting our infrastructure built and getting out of our current daisy chain from pond to pond, to gravity flow and other upgrades, future councils will not be dealing with what we dealt with in flooding risks,” Stanley added.

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Amarillo City Council OKs bond sales for drainage, airport projects