Subcommittee approves moving forward with three GO bond programs totaling hundreds of millions

Anthony Aberbond of the Controller’s Office summarized the city’s plan to issue multiple general obligation bond series in June 2013 to fund road repaving and street safety, park improvements and earthquake safety/emergency response projects. "The item before you is the Road Repair and Street Safety GO Bond program authorizing the issuance of $133,275,000 in GO bonds," he said, and added that the city plans to issue the three programs together to achieve administrative and cost efficiencies.

Aberbond said the city is modelling conservative market conditions and assumes a 6% interest rate for planning purposes. The budget analyst provided debt‑service estimates under that assumption: the road repaving bonds (~$130M par) would produce estimated total debt service of roughly $226.6M (about $96.6M in interest) with average annual debt service near $11.3M; the earthquake bonds (~$31.1M par) were projected to have about $54.3M total debt service; the Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks tranche (par amounts discussed in the analyst’s report) was projected at similar planning assumptions.

The analyst also translated homeowner impact estimates: for a $500,000 assessed home (with homeowner exemption) the additional annual property tax for the road repaving bonds was estimated at about $23.25 per year; the earthquake bond impact was estimated at $5.57 per year; the parks bond impact was estimated at $12.92 per year. The analyst recommended approval of the resolutions and ordinances.

With no public comment, the committee approved a motion to move items 2–8 forward together without objection. The resolutions will be incorporated into the official statement and related offering materials for the June sale.