City advisers outline municipal debt tools as council debates $80 million sports-complex financing

On Jan. 14, 2025, during a City of Odessa work session, financial adviser George Williford of Hilltop Securities and bond counsel Glenn Opel reviewed the debt instruments available to municipalities and discussed financing options for the proposed Danny Bell Sports Complex, an approximately $80,000,000 project under consideration.

The presentation outlined the common instruments cities use to finance projects: general obligation bonds, certificates of obligation (COs), revenue bonds, tax notes and lease-purchase or public property-finance structures. Williford said cities “have the ability to issue general obligation bonds, and certificates of obligation.” He described COs as being treated like general obligation debt by rating agencies and noted that, unlike GO bonds, COs do not require voter approval but do require a published notice period and allow for public petitioning during that period.

Williford reviewed Odessa’s current debt profile and capacity. He told the council the city’s outstanding principal (excluding a recent lease-purchase for water meters) is roughly $202,000,000 and said the city’s taxable value is at about $12,000,000,000. Using standard modeling, he said the city could justify “somewhere 50 to 80,000,000 or so” of new issuance without necessarily pressuring ratings, and that “every $1,000,000 . . . would support about a $13,000,000 issue on 20 year…