Washington County will vote on a Debt Management Policy @ Dec19th meeting.
The budget committee met multiple times and spent many hours looking over a debt policy for the county. As I understand it, this is part of a requirement to keep our bond rating. However, the last section of the policy states:
“Review of the Policy
The debt policy guidelines outlined herein are only intended to provide general
direction regarding the future use and execution of debt. A violation of the County
Legislative Body’s debt policy shall in no way be interpreted as a violation of law and shall
have no bearing on the validity of debt issued by the County Legislative Body. The County
Legislative Body maintains the right to modify these guidelines (except to the extent these
guidelines are mandated by applicable state law or regulation) and may make
exceptions to any of them at any time to the extent that the execution of such debt achieves
the County Legislative Body’s goals. Any exceptions to these policies shall be expressly
acknowledged in the resolution authorizing the pertinent debt issue. In the event of a
conflict between the terms of a debt resolution and this policy, the terms of the debt
resolution shall control.
This policy will be periodically reviewed by the Director of Accounts and Budgets. The
Director of Accounts and Budgets may at any time present recommendations for any
amendments, deletions, additions, improvements or clarifications”
I’m concerned that there is no enforcement mechanism and no consequence for ignoring it. The budget committee worked very hard for this. My fear is that this policy will begin to collect dust as soon as it is passed. I hope I’m wrong. Read the full debt management policy on page 34 – 50 of the pdf.