Thurston County to reimburse itself from proceeds of bonds for infrastructure projects

Thurston County’s Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) passed a resolution to reimburse the Thurston County Limited Tax General Obligation Bonds.

Budget and Fiscal Manager Nicole Martinez explained that, if approved, this resolution will declare the county’s intent to reimburse capital expenditures from proceeds of future borrowing.

The agenda document said, “The county intends to make and/or, has made not more than 60 days before the date of this resolution adoption (December 22, 2023) expenditures, and reasonably expects to reimburse itself for those expenditures from proceeds of bonds, for the following projects:

• Remodeling and renovation of the County's ballot processing center to provide elections security infrastructure;
• The purchase and remodeling of an existing building, or the purchase of land and construction of a new building thereon, to house the County Sheriff's Department to provide law enforcement infrastructure;
• Improving the juvenile jail; and
• The acquisition and/or construction of other associated infrastructure or capital improvements.”

“The identified expenditures and capital projects are included in the approved Capital Improvement Program (CIP),” said Martinez. “This resolution does not obligate the county to issue bonds, rather specifies if a bond was issued that the county can reimburse itself from the proceeds.”

Public concern

District 5 Commissioner Emily Clouse discussed the public comments related to the resolution before voting on the resolution.

Most of the concerns raised pertained to including the projects in the CIP, and Assistant County Manager Robert Gelder confirmed that there are project placeholders, specifically in the CIP.

“The action on this one does not predetermine the next step of actually going out for a bond —this just enables us to be able to capture costs associated with those projects that are occurring now,” said Gelder.

Another comment discussed whether the projects have budget appropriations.

“This voucher list that you're approving today, did you spend the money yet? Because you can't bring the cart before the horse. You can't spend money before it is approved,” said community member and former county commissioner candidate Terry Ballard.

Later in the meeting, Martinez and Gelder clarified that the project budget was already appropriated.

“For instance, one of the projects identified is the Ballot Processing Center. On our CIP, we have a Mottman Complex project, so that would incorporate those types of expenses. We have projects identified on the CIP to cover the expenses identified in this resolution,” Martinez said.

“They already have appropriation authority. Work is being done. This is a standard process that jurisdictions take. It is a procedural process that allows us potentially to do a cost recovery of those early expenses and then be able to put those all into one fund, one bond issuance, and potentially cover those expenses to be able to be used for other work as well,” said Gelder.

All five commissioners voted to pass the resolution.