Debt Service for Washington County
Above you will see the payback schedule for debt service through the end of this decade. It’s pretty obvious to see why I was critical of the restructuring proposal. We carved out money for our term and left the next commission with the task of finding more money to put into debt service.
While I still have issues with this, I believe the motive behind the restructuring was to buy time to find savings in other areas. This means that the ultimate ‘right or wrong’ decision won’t be known until the next commission sends us a sarcastic ‘thank you’ for the shape we leave them in. However, it should be noted that the revenue exceeds expenditures significantly through fiscal 2013-14 which will soften any need to provide immediate additional funding.
This shows some signs of respect provided we don’t decide to pull out additional revenue from the debt service fund this year.