Once again, I’ll go back to Greensboro City Council member Zack Matheny’s request of City Manager Rashad Young to help get the city out of the various messes in which government often finds itself.
Kinda like the one down the road in Winston-Salem, where they’re trying to figure out how to —-you guessed it —– spend the Dell refund money:
(S)ome council members, including Merschel, have said that the city should consider using the money to repay debts taken out to offer Dell the incentives in the first place. Doing so would eliminate the city’s annual payments on that debt. But repaying the debts could end up costing the city money, depending on how soon officials draw a new tenant to the Dell plant, said Clark Case, financial officer and treasurer for the city of Winston-Salem.
Case said the city would pay a penalty for paying the Dell debts early. If the city wanted to enter into an economic-development deal with another corporation for the Dell site, the city would have to reissue bonds to pay for those incentives.
“Basically what it boils down to is, if you’re going to reuse that money anywhere between a year and two years from now, it’s cheaper to just invest the money and have it available,” Case said. “If it’s going to go beyond two years before you’re going to do another development deal, you’re probably better to pay it off.”
It’s government’s specialty, man —- making messes that the taxpayers have to clean up later.
