Stephens Co. Approves Next Step in SPLOST Forward Funding Process

Stephens County takes another step towards issuing bonds to forward fund road projects in the county that would be paid back with SPLOST money.

Tuesday, county commissioners unanimously approved two motions.

One motion was to engage Jim Monacell to serve as the county’s bond counsel and the other motion to was engage a firm called Merchant Capital to serve as finance counsel for the bond process.

Stephens County Administrator Phyllis Ayers said both will work with the county now as it looks to set up the general obligation bonds.

“In the issuance of the bonds, there is a document with a lot of legal documents in it,” said Ayers. “Jim Monacell will handle that. Merchant Capital will come in and look at our SPLOST receipts and give some direction on how to structure the principal and interest payments and take a look at what financial firms we may do the bid with.”

Stephens County is considering issuing up to an initial $4.5 million in general obligation bonds to forward fund road projects throughout the county.

Those bonds would then be paid back with SPLOST VI revenues designated for roads as the county collects that penny sales tax.

When Stephens County voters approved SPLOST VI, that approval included a provision allowing Stephens County to borrow up to $8.5 million by issuing bonds in order to forward fund SPLOST projects.

Ayers has recommended the $4.5 million figure to start with to ensure that the county can handle the payments based on current SPLOST projections.

She said with counsel in place, the county will continue to move the process forward as quickly as possible.

“We will give both the go,” said Ayers.

Stephens County Commissioners would have to issue any final approval before any bonds can be issued.

Ayers said at this time, the county does not have a firm proposal on how much the bond issue would cost the county or exactly what the interest rate would be.