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A bill of local legislation headed to the Georgia General Assembly when it convenes in January will establish a City of Statesboro Public Facilities Authority that could issue revenue-specific bonds or incur other debt for future city projects.
“It’s a tool that would be available to the city when we need to borrow money. …,” City Manager Charles Penny said in a phone interview last week.
City Council’s request, unanimous from a 4-0 vote on Nov. 18, was directed specifically to Rep. Lehman Franklin, R-Statesboro, District 160, for sponsorship by the area delegation.
Behind the request lay a realization of something that the Bulloch County government was recently able to do but for which the city government lacked a similar power.
When the county Board of Commissioners in August approved the sale of $61.6 million of up-to-20-year bonds to finance Phase 1 of the Bulloch County Jail expansion, the actual issuing entity for the tax-exempt bonds was the Bulloch County Public Facilities Authority. For the first six years of repayment, the county has a $51 million share of the revenue earmarked for the jail from the 1% Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, as approved by an 85.8% majority of Bulloch voters in the March 18 referendum.
The referendum did not authorize general obligation bonds as such, but by using the facilities authority, the county was able to issue bonds based mainly on the SPLOST commitment.
Meanwhile, the city of Statesboro was moving forward with the long-proposed construction of the Statesboro Fire Department’s Station 3. This also carried a commitment of SPLOST funding, but lacking a public facilities authority with community-wide reach, the city could not obtain the up-front financing without taking some special steps.
“When we financed Fire Station 3, in order to use what was available to us to get it financed, we had to go through the Georgia Municipal Association, and basically we had to sell them our land, that then they are leasing it back to us, so we could borrow money to finance the construction of the project,” Penny said.
Back in August, the Herald reported terms of the then-pending Sept. 3 “public sale” of the temporarily city-owned 1.3-acre fire station site on Brannen Street Extension to the GMA, of which Statesboro is a member city.
With the city’s promise to repay, the city then borrowed $3.7 million for 20 years through the GMA’s Bricks & Mortar Program, toward the $4.8 million expected total cost to build and furnish the new fire station. The other $1.1 million will come directly from SPLOST, and the loan will be repaid with further SPLOST revenue as it arrives.
But technically, while the loan is repaid the GMA will own the fire station site, leasing it back to the city for a nominal amount. At the end of the lease, ownership will revert to the city.
A simpler way
“The facilities authority will give us that ability, without having to go through all of those maneuvers, in order to be able to finance things like the fire station,” Penny said last week. “The thing about it is, right now, after we got that financed we don’t have anything that we’re looking to finance, and so the good thing is, we could try to get this done just to have that tool in our toolbox.”
Actually, the city made use of an entity similar to a public facilities authority to finance two earlier major projects for which it is still making loan payments. The Statesboro Urban Redevelopment Agency, or URA, was established and used to issue $4.5 million in 10-year bonds to a single bank to finance the renovations and upgrades to the Luetta Moore and Grady Street parks in 2021.
Outside URA zone
But the URA is limited to just part of town, identified as in need of redevelopment.
“That was an option when we were trying to get financing for the Fire Department; however, the area where the fire station is being built is not in what we call the redevelopment area, so we would have had to go through months (of a process) to expand that area,” Penny said.
So, working with the GMA was a faster process to start building Fire Station 3. But after a Public Facilities Authority is established, it will be available for future projects, he said.
One project Statesboro officials had suggested in concept before officials of Bulloch County and the four municipalities agreed to the plan for the March 2025 SPLOST referendum was an in-town, enclosed recreational facility. But county leaders did not support the recreation venue’s inclusion for SPLOST funding in this six-year cycle, and the city has no current plan to pursue it.
Penny was not asked about that in last week’s phone interview. In that call, he said the council needn’t even be in a hurry to appoint the authority members.
“Again, no pressure on that, because we don’t have a project we’re worried about,” he said.
Requires 3 non-council
The draft resolution that was in the Nov. 18 council folder shows that the city’s authority will be organized somewhat differently from the county’s. The county authority’s board is made up of three of the county commissioners. But Statesboro Public Finance Authority board, according to the draft legislation, will consist of five members, no more than two of whom can be the mayor or council members, but all appointed by the council.
If the mayor or a council member serves on the board, their terms on the authority will coincide with their elected terms in office. Any other authority members will serve three-year terms. Besides incurring debt for projects, the authority could employ architects or contractors and buy, sell or lease property but would be subject to the council’s control of funding to pay for services or repay loans.
Also interviewed last week, Rep. Franklin said he believes the city’s proposed authority and the other local Statesboro-Bulloch bill he will introduce – the county’s request to expand the Bulloch County Board of Elections and Registration from three members to five – are “necessary.” He has consulted Rep. Butch Parrish and Rep. (House Speaker) Jon Burns, whose districts also include parts of Bulloch, for delegation-wide sponsorship of these bills in the state House.
Brief notices about the “intent to introduce local legislation” were set to appear in the Statesboro Herald, as the local legal organ, because this is a requirement for such city- or county-specific bills.
Meanwhile, grading and other site-prep work have begun for SFD station 3 on Brannen Street behind Lowe’s.
The council awarded Lavender & Associates an initial $4.36 million design-build contract for the fire station and authorized up to $440,000 more for furniture and fixtures as well as for any “unforeseen issues.” The city had purchased the 1.3-acre site in December 2024 for $588,000. City officials and Lavender broke ground with an Oct.20 ceremony, with predictions the station could be ready for use in May or June 2026.