DALLAS - Voters in Lubbock, Texas will not vote on $134 million of general obligation bonds after the City Council halted plans to place the proposal on the ballot next spring.
At its Sept. 25 meeting, the council voted 4-2 to table the proposals from a citizens committee, including $66 million for street upgrades and $18.5 million for city facilities and public safety projects.
"I agree with everything the committee came up with, but I'm not sure the timing is right," said Mayor Glen C. Robertson. "I'm not sure the city can afford it."
The council last month raised property taxes by more than 2 cents per $100. That followed higher rates for water and electricity, council members noted.
"There are too many things that are hitting the pocketbooks of our citizens," said council member Victor Hernandez. "The amount of debt this city will have in a very short time is going to exceed over $2 billion. I'm convinced of that."
Lubbock currently has nearly $1 billion of debt.
Hernandez said it could be two to four years before the city's taxpayers are ready to approve new bonds.
"Historically, bond elections are a little more palatable because as your debt rolls off, your capacity for new debt increases," Hernandez said. "This is not the case here. This is almost all new debt."
The city of 236,000 issued $65 million of certificates of obligation for the water works and $49.7 million of general obligation refunding bonds last spring with ratings of AA-plus from Standard & Poor's and Aa2 from Moody's Investors Service.
While the city has $3.7 million of authorized, unissued debt that it does not expect to issue in the near term, its capital improvement plan identifies approximately $40 million in additional borrowing in fiscal 2015 and is expected to be self-supporting, according to Moody's.
"We expect the city's tax base will continue to grow because of the increasing volume of new building permits and market-value appreciation," Moody's analyst Nathan Phelps wrote in his April 13 report. "Texas Tech University System is a stabilizing institutional presence and anchor for the local economy."
