LR board authorizes pursuit of financing for solar-panel array
Members of the Little Rock Board of Directors authorized pursuing up to $12 million in short-term financing tied to the construction of one or more solar arrays during a meeting Tuesday.
City officials expect to receive approximately $4.1 million in federal tax credits that will defray a portion of the cost.
After an interest-only payment on the first anniversary of the issuance of the note, the debt will be repaid in four “substantially equal payments of principal and interest,” according to a memo from the city manager’s office included with meeting materials.
Mayor Frank Scott Jr. said during the meeting Tuesday that the note will be repaid over five years.
The solar panels will be placed at one to four locations using up to 50 acres of city-owned property, according to city board documents.
Officials believe the solar project can supply 70% of the city’s electricity needs while getting the city closer to its goal of relying on clean energy to power 100% of municipal operations by 2030.
City board members adopted the resolution on the short-term financing in a voice vote. At-large City Director Joan Adcock could be heard voting no on both the resolution and an associated emergency clause.
At a meeting last week, James Owen, a policy adviser and special projects manager within the mayor’s office, told city board members that officials were examining three or four different sites in concert with utility company Entergy Arkansas.
Scott said at the time that officials were looking at sites at the Little Rock Port, Remmel Park and Fourche Bottoms.
Because of legislation state lawmakers approved in 2023, Little Rock officials are up against a September deadline tied to the project if they want to take advantage of more favorable pricing for the energy the solar panels will put onto the grid.
Unless they meet the deadline to be grandfathered in under the previous pricing
ously were allocated for the state’s share of public school building projects in the state’s Revenue Stabilization Act for about a decade, “although it has been escalating up of course as most things would.”
In fiscal 2023 that ended June 30, 2023, $70.3 million in general revenue was allocated for the educational facilities partnership program.
After the money in the restricted reserve fund’s education facilities set-aside “is used, are you trying to say that we will no longer need that anymore or at that particular point we will have to go back for a line-item” in the state’s Revenue Stabilization Act if surplus funds are no longer available to replenish the program, Hickey asked Rogers.
In response, Rogers said he doesn’t believe the education partnership program will end.
“I think that at the end of the fifth or sixth years once we extinguish the set-aside funds, it would be something that we would have to step back and look and see how much is needed, if it is another set-aside, or if it would be something that we would put in [the Revenue Stabilization Act],” he said.
The state Department of Education previously received approval to receive $83 million out of the restricted reserve fund’s education facilities set-aside, according to a Bureau of Legislative Research analyst. If the Joint Budget Committee approves the department’s request for $65.8 million, that would leave a balance of $351 million in the restricted reserve fund’s education facilities set-aside.
Sen. Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, said he would encourage state officials to continue reevaluating the educational partnership program “to ensure that this is something sustainable for the state and that we are meeting the needs of the districts, but not exceeding the state participation.”