Capital Budgeting and Infrastructure Finance: A Toolkit for Elected Officials

As elected officials, one of your most important responsibilities is providing for the future needs of your communities, while still protecting the full faith and credit of your local government.  Public investments for capital needs, such as public safety, schools, water and sewer, and parks and recreation are costly, and the financing is complex. 

In this two-day workshop, participants will see first-hand examples where collaboration, strategic planning, and consensus-building have helped address their communities’ long-term capital needs. Various models of debt financing will be explored, and the City of Asheville and Buncombe County will highlight their planning and funding processes. 

Site Visits  

Buncombe County and the City of Asheville work hard to mutually support each other’s asset development goals. Workshop participants will tour Buncombe County’s Emergency Services Training Facility for Fire, EMS and Law Enforcement Agencies, and the City of Asheville’s nationally acclaimed River Arts District, both visionary projects that were collaboratively planned and financed to meet the long term needs of their communities.  Transportation is provided by the City of Asheville Parks and Recreation Division.  

Bond Rating Agencies Included

Improving your local government’s bond ratings can lead to significant savings on interest rates for long term debt. The New York bond rating agencies’ financial assessment strategies for rating local government bonds highlight the importance of factors within your control that influence their decisions about your creditworthiness. 

Ratings analysts from Standard and Poor Global Ratings, Moody’s Investments Services, and Fitch Ratings will share the most important factors they consider in determining the bond ratings of North Carolina’s local governments. They will discuss their roles in evaluating our local governments’ credit and debt capacity by helping answer the following questions:

• Why do bond ratings matter? 
• What can local elected officials do to improve their unit’s bond ratings? 
• What do the rating agencies consider good financial practices or strategies? 
• How do ratings analysts evaluate your debt capacity?  
• Does geography matter? Does climate change matter? What external factors influence the cost of your local government’s debt? 

Lead Instructors for the class are Renee Paschal, Adjunct Instructor with the School of Government, and Bryan Thompson, Chatham County Manager.  

Program contributors include Sybil Tate, Assistant Buncombe County Manager; Tony McDowell, City of Asheville Finance Director; Rachel Wood, City of Asheville Assistant City Manager; and Jeremiah LeRoy, Buncombe County Sustainability Officer.  

This is a 201 Level course in the Local Elected Leaders Academy and participating elected officials will earn 12 credits towards their Master level certificate.