Financial adviser lays out bond scenarios and how a 1% school sales tax would change property-tax impact

Jimmy Sanderson, financial adviser with Davenport & Company, gave the board a multi-scenario analysis of how the county could fund a roughly $60 million non-school CIP and roughly $121 million in school projects over a 10-year horizon. Sanderson said the county currently carries about $125 million in outstanding debt and is within its debt-to-assessed-value and debt-service policy limits, but the near-term school projects would concentrate borrowing in the first five years.

Sanderson walked supervisors through four scenarios: general-fund borrowing alone; school borrowing assuming a voter-approved 1% school sales tax; a standard 20-year funding path with no interest-only period; and a combined general fund and school funding scenario that assumes $3.5 million in annual sales-tax revenue (a conservative haircut of historical ~$3.9M). "We're assuming 3,500,000," Sanderson said. He warned that without the 1% sales tax the combined plan could require more than a 10-cent increase in the real-estate tax rate over time to make the full CIP affordable, while including the 1% sales tax substantially reduced the projected property-tax penny impact.

Sanderson also outlined timing: if voters approve the November referendum and certification allows, the board could adopt an ordinance in December and the tax could take effect after the statutory waiting period; if certification slips the schedule moves into the following year. He recommended continued engagement with bond counsel and rating agencies as the county refines the CIP and timing. Supervisors asked for scenarios scaled to smaller borrowing amounts and for sensitivity on interest-rate and reassessment variables; Sanderson said staff can run targeted analyses for those alternatives.