Legislature attack could threaten state’s health

Vindictive, irresponsible proposed legislation should alarm local and state policymakers throughout Tennessee, as the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County has become the target of bills that ignore the principles of municipal home-rule and state fiscal responsibility.

Legislators have filed bills to repeal the use of pledged taxes paying for debt service on municipal bonds issued for Nashville’s Music City Center conference complex, to cut in half the 40member Metro council, and to take control of Metro Nashville airport authority and sports authority through state appointments.

This clearly is punishment for the Metro Nashville council’s having declined to bid on hosting a Republican National Convention and has nothing to do with government efficiency.

If the council-size bill is enacted, each

Metro Nashville district council member will represent far more citizens than will members of other Tennessee city councils and county commissions. And legislators outside of Davidson County will have vetoed the decision of Davidson County voters in two home-rule charter elections.

The state should honor commitments to pay its debts

If the state legislature can fiddle with that home-rule matter and get away with it, then it also could interfere in other ways.

Take, for example, fiscal responsibility. Mayor John Cooper and the council should be commended for having straightened out Metro Nashville finances in his first year in office, preventing the threatened takeover of local finance by the state comptroller of the treasury.

Now come state legislators, threatening to damage the Metro Nashville-davidson County bond rating and fiscal condition by repealing the use of taxes pledged for debt service, operations, and maintenance of the convention center. This will do more than harm the local bond rating. It will cost Metro taxpayers more in local taxes to pay the convention center debt and other costs and likely will result in higher costs for future projects.

Not only will the repeal damage Metro Nashville’s standing with the bond rating agencies, but it also likely will harm other local governments, because the rating agencies will see that they cannot depend upon the Tennessee General Assembly to stand behind commitments it has made in law for support of local government construction projects.

And it might damage the state’s own credit rating, for if the state will not honor its legal commitments to local governments, how can it be trusted to stand behind its pledges on its own bond issues?

A credit rating downgrading is not unrealistic

There is historical experience with fiscal misbehavior of one level of government affecting another’s standing with credit rating agencies.

In 2011, Moody’s Investors Service placed the top-level triple-a credit ratings of Tennessee and four other states under review for downgrade because of the risk of U.S. government default on federal debt and the states’ dependence on federal revenue and related factors, while Congress and the president debated the federal debt limit as the deadline approached.

Ultimately, the debt limit was raised and the state credit ratings were not affected, but the rating agency’s message on the importance of stable and responsible intergovernmental fiscal relations was clear. (See Moody’s announcement in July 2011 via an Associated Press article.)

Tennessee legislators have a long history of knowing better than what these bills do. Sponsors should remember their heritage and withdraw these bills; otherwise, legislators should vote to reject the bills.

Every local government, every Tennessean has something at stake here.

Bill Bradley, who lives in Nashville, formerly worked for the State of Tennessee for 39 years, including 14 years as director of the Division of Budget, Department of Finance and Administration.