Riverside to Sell $145 million in Teeter Notes

LOS ANGELES — Riverside County plans to sell $145 million in Teeter obligation notes on Oct. 2 in a negotiated sale.

Citigroup and BofA Merrill Lynch are the underwriters.

The inland county located southeast of Los Angeles was one of the hardest hit in the nation by the housing market crash, but the county has been recovering slowly and experienced 28 consecutive months of year-over-year employment gains, according to a Fitch Ratings report.

County officials laid off 229 people in July, which enabled the municipality to shrink a projected $80 million budget deficit to achieve a balanced budget.

The $4.5 billion fiscal 2013 budget was balanced without the use of reserves following four years of deficit operations, the Fitch report said.

The Teeter program provided 6% of discretionary general fund revenues in fiscal 2012 for the county, the report said.

Teeter is an alternate procedure for collection of property taxes authorized by California code where counties advance the full property tax levy to taxing jurisdictions, while retaining penalties and interest for themselves as taxes are paid.

The proceeds will be used to refund a portion of the county’s outstanding 2011 notes and fund an advance of delinquent property taxes to local taxing agencies.

The notes were rated MIG1 by Moody’s Investors Service and F1-plus by Fitch.

Fitch also gave the county an implied GO bond rating of AA-minus.

The county has $681 million in lease obligations and $357 million in pension obligation bond debt, according to the preliminary official statement.

It’s overlapping debt levels are moderate to high at $3,601 per capita and 5.4% of market value with below-average amortization, according to the Fitch report.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
California
MORE FROM BOND BUYER