EDITOR:
Do you think the Platte County Commissioners would buy a new home if they had no idea what the interest rate would be? Of course they wouldn’t. But that is exactly what they are doing with the jail proposal. I guess when it comes to our money it is different.
As Gordon Cook mentioned last week in his letter to the editor, Platte County has a bad bond rating due to the Zona Rosa fiasco. Last month the Platte County rating was at Ba3 or “Junk” status, a rating way below the Aaa everyone wants. Not a huge deal if you are not going to borrow money in the immediate future, as we were told by our commissioners at the time when they decided to not back up the note at Zona. This tells me they did know at that time our bond rating would default to “junk” or “speculative” status so it is funny to see them act so indignant now about the lower rating.
If you look at the difference currently between Aaa rated bonds and “speculative” bonds you will see an interest rate that is higher by as much as 3% on some projects due to the much lower bond rating. In real dollars a bad rating means we taxpayers will probably pay $10 to $30 million more in just interest over the next 20 years due to the decision and timing on this jail project and Zona Rosa.
Compare a bond rating to your credit score, a score of 800 (Aaa) will get you a much better interest rate than 500 (Ba3) because the 800 score means you are less risky. The trouble with a bad bond rating is, you don’t know what interest rate you will have to pay to get your $85 million in bonds purchased until it goes to market after the election so our commissioners are just gambling with our money the interest rate won’t be that bad.
I thought the $6 to $8 million more in taxes the Platte County R-3 School District just hit taxpayers for in additional interest was a lot, but compared to how this jail is being handled and the timing of this project it seems like chump change.
For some reason our elected leaders just seem to love giving money to financial institutions. The Platte County bond rating will get better but it will take time, so maybe we should wait on the August jail proposal and look for an alternative.
Springfield Mo was in a worse situation then Platte County needing more beds in their jail but unable to pass the tax fast enough so they used All Detainment Solutions that brought in temporary (3 year lease) jail trailers and all the security infrastructure to put temporary jails behind the city courthouse. A set up much like ours. This was done about 2017 and I remember seeing the set up, it was pretty cool. The cost at that time was $22 per prisoner per night according to the Springfield newspaper . Here is the link to the article and pictures. https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/crime/2017/11/01/greene-countys-unique-trailer-jail-hold-108-while-keeping-out-snow-drugs-and-drones/822238001/or just Google Springfield Mo temporary jail trailer.
If we really do need more jail space quickly the trailers seem like a possible cheaper solution plus it would give our county time to get their financial house in order. If a bigger jail is needed fine but let’s not waste a possible 30 plus million dollars just because we are not looking at other solutions to fix the problem until our bond rating gets better.
--Kirby Holden
Rural Platte County
