County takes steps toward retiring debt

By CHARLES W. JOHNSON / News Editor for the Southern Standard

County Executive Kenneth Rogers, with the help of director of accounts Linda Hillis, playfully burns a facsimile of one of the notes the county recently paid off eight years early, thus saving over $300,000 in interest. (Charles W. Johnson photo)

It’s not very often the county gets to see its debts go up in smoke, but that’s exactly what happened last week when County Executive Kenneth Rogers literally burned facsimiles of some capitol outlay notes which the county recently paid off early, saving a significant amount of interest and freeing up money for use on other debts.

“These were two of the larger notes with the highest interest on them,” Rogers said, “that we were able to pay off this year. One of them was for around $1.7 million and the other was for $707,000. We had to pay some interest on this, but the principal was $2.29 million.”

According to Rogers, the county actually paid off the notes some eight years early, saving over $367,000 in interest in the process.

“What we did last year is I suggested to Budget and Finance, and the full commission went along with it, that we move money around and put it into debt service to be able to pay these notes off early. And that’s what we’ve done.”

Rogers says he doesn’t plan to stop there.

“The goal is, right now, and it’s reachable,” Rogers said, “is that we can have Warren County debt free by 2013, and that includes the Centertown School and the jail.”

According to county director of accounts Linda Hillis, the move should have beneficial results.

“It’s going to free up some money which will allow us to do some other projects, like the Centertown School,” Hillis said, “and we’re saving quite a bit in interest.”

Rogers says the increased income from the local option sales tax should fund the program without any increase in property tax.

These bonds were the balance owed on school improvement projects from the 1990s, according to Rogers.