Belknap County Commission trims jail bond issue to $7.8 million

LACONIA — Belknap County will reduce the amount of the bond issue it is seeking for the new Community Corrections Center by $200,000.

Commissioners voted last Thursday to reduce the amount of the bond issue from $8 million to $7.8 million after receiving an update from County Administrator Debra Shackett on funds remaining in the account used to pay costs for the jail.

The county has paid for the now-completed project with an $8 million bond anticipation note, which was due last month.

Faced with a higher than anticipated interest rate on the bond issue due to the downgrading of the county’s credit rating by Moody’s Investor Services, the county opted to float the bond through the New Hampshire Municipal Bond Bank.

Moody’s dropped the county’s financial rating two notches from Aa2 to A1 in late February, citing continued depletion of reserves to fund the county’s operating budget, coupled with an inability or unwillingness to raise sufficient revenues.

Shackett said the bond will be bundled with bonds from other communities in the state when the Bond Bank seeks bids in June, and the interest rate is expected to be closer to the 3.5 percent the county had been looking at before its credit was downgraded.

She said that in order to pay off the bond anticipation that was due last month, the county obtained a short-term loan from the Bank of New Hampshire. The loan has a 1.4 percent interest rate and will cost about $25,000 in interest costs, with additional fees for bond counsel and financial advisers expected to add $12,500 to $15,000 in costs.

Commissioner Hunter Taylor (R-Alton) pointed out that nearly $500,000 of the bond issue was repurposed, $400,000 for a new roof at the Belknap County Nursing Home and $100,000 for a window replacement project at the Belknap County Courthouse.

He said that both projects were sorely needed. Taylor also criticized past actions of the Belknap County Delegation that he said had produced ‘’the illusion of a tax cut” and led to the county having a lower credit rating.

Commissioners also discussed but took no action on transfer requests amounting to $125,000.

Shackett said the transfer requests, $100,000 for the Corrections Opportunity for Recovery and Education (CORE) program at the Community Corrections Center, $20,000 for information technology and $5,000 for health insurance had been developed after a departmental review of budgets to identify underfunded items. The transfer would come from the $146,000 left in the contingency fund.

Funding for the CORE program was cut by the Belknap County delegation by $92,000, from $220,000 to $128,000 when it adopted a $27.9 million county budget in February.

The CORE program, which emphasizes treatment rather than incarceration for prisoners with drug dependency problems, is seen by commissioners as a vital part of the county’s effort to combat the opioid crisis.

Commission Glen Waring (R-Gilmanton), who chaired the meeting in the absence of Commission Chairman Dave DeVoy (R-Sanbornton), said that he would rather seek a  $140,000 supplemental appropriation from county delegation than use contingency funds.

“The underfunded programs are the direct result of underfunding by the delegation,” said Waring.

Commissioner Taylor said the commission’s transfer power is unlimited due to the manner in which the county delegation adopted its budget but thought it is not yet the time to dip into contingency funds.