In response to corruption scandals that have plagued Palm Beach County, commissioners last week adopted new policies that require underwriters, financial advisers and bond, disclosure, and underwriters’ counsel to be selected through a request for proposals process.
The county will use an RFP process to pre-qualify an underwriting pool for its deals. A finance committee will be created to participate in the decision-making aspects of county debt-related activities.
The new policies were recommended in late May by a grand jury. It released a report saying the county faced “a crisis of trust in public governance” after three county and two West Palm Beach city commissioners pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges in recent years.
The most recent case involved Palm Beach County commissioner Mary McCarty, who resigned earlier this year and later pleaded guilty to depriving constituents of her honest services. McCarty was accused of steering bond business to her husband, former banker Kevin McCarty. He pleaded guilty for not reporting his wife’s illegal activities and is serving an eight-month sentence in prison.
Meanwhile, commissioners last week adopted a resolution authorizing the issuance of $54 million of federal recovery zone facility bonds. That matches the amount allocated to the county from the $15 billion approved by the U.S. Treasury Department in June to foster economic development in distressed areas.
The county will take applications from qualified private businesses after it designates recovery zones that have “significant poverty, unemployment, rate of home foreclosures, or general distress.”
Each application for bond financing will be approved separately. The bond allocation expires on December 31, 2010.
