Assistant Finance Director Nathan Parris told the City of Georgetown City Council that the city’s outstanding principal across its portfolio is about $943,000,000 and previewed proposed debt issuances for 2025.

The presentation summarized the city’s types of debt, how the city times and finances projects, bond ratings and coverage ratios, and projected 2025 issuance amounts for tax-supported and utility debt. Parris said the presentation is intended as an overview and that staff will return to council with more detailed modeling and recommendations before issuing debt.

Parris said the city uses multiple debt types depending on the asset: “a vehicle is going to be something that we may finance depending on the type of vehicle at 5, 8, 10 years,” while larger assets such as buildings are financed over longer terms. He said general obligation bonds require voter approval and are paid with property tax rates, while certificates of obligation require council approval and public notice and can be self-supporting when backed by a revenue source such as stormwater or garbage fees.

On ratings and coverage, Parris said the city is now rated AAA on its general obligation debt. He gave revenue-bond ratings as “A plus with a positive outlook” from Standard & Poor’s and “double A minus” from Fitch. Parris described the city’s internal target debt-coverage ratio as 1.5 times, the bond covenant minimum as 1.35, and said preliminary unaudited 2024 coverage was 2.54 times and the 2025 budget anticipates 2.39 times for combined electric and water.

Parris outlined planned 2025 issuance estimates: about $59,000,000 in tax-backed debt (COs and GOs) and roughly $110,200,000 in electric/water/wastewater revenue bonds. He also identified project-level estimates cited in the presentation, including $44,400,000 of GTEC projects and per-project planning amounts of about $20,900,000 for certificates of obligation and $38,200,000 for general obligation projects in 2025.

Jennifer Ritter of Specialized Public Finance provided an interest-rate outlook in response to a council question: “We generally project them to go up about a quarter point each year going forward in the future,” and she added that rates may stabilize compared with the recent past.

Parris said staff rely on financial advisors and annual rating reviews to time refunding opportunities and sales method decisions (competitive or negotiated). He said the city seeks to “maintain the stability of our tax rate” and uses multi-year capital planning to assess whether cash or debt financing best serves intergenerational equity.

Staff said the process will continue with further modeling, a separate debt-rate workshop and then the scheduled debt sale and closing in mid‑year. No formal action was taken during the workshop presentation.

For reference, Parris noted the city’s tax rate shown in the presentation as $36.47, with “about $23.9” of that credited to debt service; the transcript did not specify the units or whether the latter figures represent dollars per $100 of assessed value or another basis.