Unfinished Business: “Elephants never forget”

Slabbed is the current beneficiary of some good old fashioned elbow grease that is being applied to certain issues from the past. Those various tidbits from the past should make for a fun election season.

One fact that has been established with the help of Lana Noonan of the Hancock County Alliance for Good Government is the Administration was capable of running legal advertisements as she found an instance where the Water and Sewer Refunding Bonds were advertised by then City Clerk David Kolf back in 2014. Tuesday night Mayor Fillingame took the microphone to dispute the State Auditor’s Office Performance Review which first documented his refusal to discharge the duties of his office while instead blaming the City Council clerk for his Administration’s ineptitude in failing to publish the Zoning Ordnance as required by state law. Such a performance by Hizzoner can only mean the silly season is on in a big way.

So to set up tomorrow’s post what we need to do is circle back in time to the release of the FY 2014 audit with its multitude of major internal control and compliance findings. I put that link in the preceding sentence out on Twitter early this week and it garnered a good reader response. Those that remember those particular times in 2015 understand that part of Hizzoner defending his administration against terrible audit results included him saying the audit findings were bogus including one that involved the City’s property insurance lapsing during Hurricane Season. Slabbed was Johnny on the Spot to debunk the dishonorable Hizzoner’s media talking points and the rest is history…..well not quite as it turned out and that is fodder for the next post. Stay tuned.

The Technical Term is “In-substance defeasance”

In-substance defeasance is an accounting term for removing debt from an entity’s balance sheet though the debt itself is not cancelled. The debt is considered paid from an accounting standpoint if a dedicated sinking fund is created with a financial intermediary that is sufficient to extinguish the original debt over time. In the case of the City of Bay St Louis, the proposed Utility Fund refunding bonds would In-substance defease the previous refunding bonds that In-substance defeased the original bond issue.

In layman’s terms this would mark the second time the original Water and Sewer capital improvement bonds have been refinanced. Having a bit of experience with the back end of this type of transaction, I can say first hand that it is complex and carries hefty legal and professional fees as the Bay City Council found out first hand at last night’s meeting.

In other news:

Bay eyes cuts, new projects to fix budget ~ Dwayne Bremer

To the council’s credit, public input was welcomed, even on an impromptu basis, though the nice lady from Ward 6 that wore out Mayor Fillingame did end up being gaveled by Council President McDonald. Continue reading “The Technical Term is “In-substance defeasance””