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.

With recent surpluses, Sullivan has already begun debt reduction practices, Finance Commissioner Richard LaCondre said.

While the county landfill accounts for the major portion of Sullivan’s indebtedness, Sullivan receives special state- backed bonding with substantial decreased interest rates for the landfill. “We didn’t consider landfill debt in this instance,” LaCondre said. Other debt bonds issued in 1986 for the county office building, a public works shed facility, the cooperative extension and a new transfer station; in 1989 for the renovation of the old infirmary; and in 1999 for renovations to county buildings, all carry higher interest rates and would be retired first, LaCondre said.

The resolution passed Tuesday set the apportionment of the bond revenue instead, at least 60 percent going to debt reduction and the remainder to capital projects.

Finance Chair Kathy LaBuda (D-2) noted that some of the new money was already encumbered toward maintaining the Legislature’s three-percent cut in county property taxes.

LaBuda admitted that, while projects like the Route 17 visitor center have been discussed, there is currently no consensus among the legislature as to which projects the new money would go.

“I just don’t want to see [the bond money] disappear into the general fund,” Legislative Chair Rusty Pomeroy said last week.

In other business at the legislative committee meetings last week: members of the Planning and Community Development Committee discussed county involvement in framing a new model sign ordinance for Sullivan municipalities to consider. Rodney Gaebel (RC-5) voiced some skepticism, suggesting that the Legislature should find out if there is the “political will” in the various communities before investing staff time in the project.