$100 million and counting
Either Langdon’s or Stokes’ preferred options may yet be employed as Fletcher and his staff piece together funding sources, though the lion’s share will be covered through issuing up to $85 million in bonds that city voters would have to approve through a referendum.
The current plan is to have that question placed on the Aug. 20 primary ballot rather than in the more crowded Nov. 5 general election.
About $50 million of those bonds would be covered from funds collected through the recently approved half-cent sales tax – though to accomplish that, funds allocated for the second phase of widening Price Boulevard would be deferred until after the vote to renew the sales tax in 2039.
The other $35 million would come from a 6.8% increase in the property tax rate which adds another $102 a year to the tax bill of a home valued at $200,000, Fletcher said.
Commissioner Debbie McDowell suggested that other sales tax projects could be cut or deferred to lower the prospective property tax increase.
A projected $7 million could be raised through the city selling the current police station to the Development Services Department, which currently has about $10 million in its building fee funds available to pay for an expansion.
Development Services Director Alaina Ray noted that the department is suffering the same growing pains as the police department, with former conference rooms being shared by four employees as an office.
“We are in dire need, we are busting at the seams on the first floor,” Ray said.
That would bring the total to $92 million.
The possible sale of three city owned properties – a 47-acre potential park site on Italy Avenue; six-acres owned by Road and Drainage on Price Lane and an acre of commercially-zoned land owned at 5601 Sumter Boulevard – could bring in as much as $8.6 million.
The sale of the Italy Avenue site, which is valued at $7 million, is the most controversial of that bunch, since it had long been projected to be the location for an east-side community center.