The Kyle Report is a column written by Kyle resident, Pete Oppel, that covers city leadership issues. You can follow The Kyle Report here on the Kyle Life or by subscribing to Mr. Oppel’s blog, The Kyle TX Report.
On Tuesday night, the Kyle City Council accelerated work on the 2013 road bond package, most likely necessitating a property tax hike of between $200 and $280 a year on the average Kyle home, learned about a temporary and amazingly inexpensive quick fix to some of the worst problems on Bunton Road and told an individual wishing to start to “non-emergency ambulance service” in Kyle that (1) his service was not about ambulances and (2) at least one council member desired more information on who will be driving his vehicles.
As indicated by Mayor Todd Webster last week, the council voted not to issue the bonds approved in 2013 for each of the five road projects sequentially, but all $30.48 million of them at one time, thus permitting work on all five to proceed more quickly.
The City’s Finance Director Perez A. Moheet made the following presentation to the council:
“Staff is seeking your authorization again to begin the process to work with the city’s financial advisor and bond counsel to work on the bond issue for the remaining bond authority on the road bonds. In May of 2013 the voters of Kyle authorized $36 million for the road projects. That included the cost of bond issuance. This is the remaining bond authorization from the original $36 million bond authority given to the city for the five road projects. So far the city has issued $5.52 million in general obligation bonds for the road projects which was primarily for engineering design and right-of-way-acquisition services. The proceeds from the new bond issue will be use primarily to pay for construction and related services for the five roads A small amount will be used to pay for the cost of the bond issuance. We will do our best, both at the staff level and your financial advisor level, that given the city’s strong financial position and our excellent credit rating we anticipate and hope that we sell these bonds at a premium whereby the cost of the issuance of the transaction will be offset by the premium we are able to sell the bonds for.
“Timing of the bond sale is critical as well for three reasons. First, we want to make sure the bond proceeds are available by the time the city council awards construction contracts for the five roads. Second, we want to firm up the debt service requirement on the new bonds before the budget process begins so we can set the I&S (the debt rate) of the property tax rate which the council will adopt the first week of September as part of the budget process. Third, the Federal Reserve Board has been hinting around since last fall (editors note: and issued an even strong “hint” today) of increasing interest rates as early as this June. So given all those reasons the timing is now if we’re going to do it.”
Moheet said he asked the city’s financial advisor to run three scenarios to forecast what the impact of the sale would be on the property tax rate. Combining all three analyses — one forecasting moderate growth, one using a more aggressive forecast and a third using “full throttle, all aggressive assumptions” — the advisors said, according to Moheet, “the tax impact is between 10 and 14 cents per $100, which is close to what we have been talking about since the beginning. If you recall, the very first projections we shared with citizens was between 9.6 cents and 21 cents given the growth assumptions we were using in those scenarios.”
That means the tax impact would have the following effect, according to my rough calculations (which were subsequently confirmed by Mr. Moheet):
- A home valued at $150,000 would see an annual tax hike of between $150 and $210
- A home valued at $175,000 would see an annual tax hike of between $175 and $245
- A home valued at $225,000 would see an annual tax hike of between $225 and $315
- A home valued at $250,000 would see an annual tax hike of between $250 and $350
There was no discussion on the proposal and it passed the council on a 6-0 vote. (Council member Samantha Bellows-LeMense did not attend Tuesday’s meeting.)
On a related subject, Public Works Director Harper Wilder told the council that he and City Manager Scott Sellers drove the length of Bunton Road and identified five locations where the road was buckled to an extent that it “presented a life, health and safety issue,” but which could be fixed temporarily before the entire road is reconstructed as part of the bond proposal mentioned above. He said the materials needed to fix those five spots are 207 tons of base and 77 tons of asphalt, costing only $7,195.50. He rounded it off to $7,500, he said, just to be on the safe side.
“These would be basically from the fire station to Dacy Lane and there are five areas in there that we have identified,” Wilder said.
Mayor Webster appeared quite surprised over the low cost of the fix.
“You’re saying to make temporary repairs to Bunton Lane, it would cost $7,500,” the mayor said. “I don’t know what to say. I have absolutely no problem with that. Earlier estimates I was given were 10 times this amount. This level of expense to me seems well worth it.”
Council member Tammy Swaton asked Wilder how long it would take to make the repairs.
“It depends,” he said. “We haven’t set up an actual scheduling. Are we going to shut down the road from Breadbasket? But I would assume going from Breadbasket to Dacy in one and maybe from Breadbasket up to the fire station in another, it’s possible in three weeks time. Don’t hold me to that because I have to check on the availability of supplies but I think we could get it done at a fairly quick rate.”
Council member David Wilson asked if it might be a good idea to prohibit certain commercial vehicles from using Bunton until the reconstruction is completed. Wilder told him he didn’t think that was necessary because this temporary fix will “hold up better” than such fixes have done in the past.
Mayor Webster did voice some concern that residents may view these temporary repairs as the bond work. Wilder thought travelers would know the difference.
“There will still be issues on Bunton Lane,” he said. “Even with these fixes, don’t expect a smooth ride from Point A to Point B. But the major issues will be taken care of.
“Because of the low expense of this project will we just go ahead and do that out of our maintenance budget,” Wilder added, “so we’re not asking council for approval.”
At the suggestion of council member Wilson, I am inserting the following:
ATTENTION: The construction work that’s about to commence on Bunton Road is not — repeat NOT — part of the 2013 bond package but only a temporary repair to five areas of the road identified as potentially harmful to life, health and safety.
Call me a shill for the city if you wish, but I prefer to identify the previous paragraph as a public service announcement.
Item 10 on the agenda sought approval for an ordinance that would grant Frederick Smith’s S&S Transport a franchise to provide non-emergency ambulance services within the city limits.
“The initial request led us to believe that this was actually an ambulance service,” the city’s Chief of Staff Jerry Hendrix told the council, “but it’s really more of a shuttle.”
Smith said the type of transportation he provides is for individuals with wheelchairs, an ambulatory patient that must have a medical device with him or her, but nothing of an emergency nature. Council member Wilson wanted to know where the customers would be transported from and to.
“It’s from a hospital to a nursing home, a hospital to a rehab, a patient needing transportation to a church — any service they need to be transported,” Smith said.
Mayor Pro Tem Diane Hervol had some issues with this application, first wondering what kind of licenses the company possessed. After the meeting was over she told me she was concerned about what kind of background checks, if any, were performed on the company’s drivers. She told me she hopes her concerns will be addressed to her satisfaction between last night and the second reading of the ordinance in two weeks. However, she did make the motion to approve the item, substituting the word “shuttle” for “ambulance.” The motion carried 6-0.