TRR photo by Jill Padua Assembled Litterpluck trash is pictured May 5 near Little Lake Erie. (Click for full story)

Sullivan to sell
tobacco bonds

By DAVID HULSE

MONTICELLO — Meeting in a special May 8 session, the Sullivan County Legislature’s Finance Committee agreed to take part in a bond offering that would essentially sell off the county’s remaining payments from a national tobacco settlement.

The payments, valued between $25 and $38 million at full value, would be sold at a discounted rate for an immediate anticipated payoff of $13.2 million.

If approved by the full Legislature later this month, the county would participate in a larger bond offering later this spring, which is being sponsored by the New York State Association of Counties.

The Finance Committee Tuesday  continued discussion of the issue begun on May 3, when the question of how the resulting proceeds from the bonds would be spent, was initially presented.

The county law, passed earlier, which enables the bond deal, provides that the new money will go to debt reduction and capital expenditures. Originally, those figures were penciled in at 75/25 respectively, but there were questions about the proportions last week.