Keeping an eye on fluctuating credit markets is a good practice. This is the type of stuff that a financial gurus pay attention to, and why I support the hiring of a finance director for the BOE. The BOE budget is the largest expense for Norwalk. To have someone like Opdhal mismanaging funds and projects just means that money is not working for the BOE. Maximizing the dollars you have is an important aspect of financial management. There’s a lot of short sighted thinking by some BOE members when they derail the movement to force Corda to accept a finance director position.
The Council is all set to vote on the budget, which is odd considering that the full council had essentially from last Thursday’s meeting till Tuesday to examine the budget book and work through the details that the finance committee recommended. Oh wait, it’s a pass through budget.
From the Advocate:
More money may be trimmed if the city goes ahead with re-funding $60 million in bonds this week, Hamilton said.Like refinancing a home mortgage, re-funding bonds at a lower interest rate enables an issuer to save money by refinancing debt issued at higher interest rates.With two interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve in January, the prospects of re-funding bonds look attractive, Hamilton said. But in the last week, “the market has worked against us,” he said.
It’s generally worth doing a re-fund if there would be a savings of 2 percent or more, Hamilton said. As of mid-January, such a move would have saved the city 1.95 percent, or $311,000. The savings more recently nearly tripled to $950,000, but the market has backed off from that, he said.
“We’re watching it and gearing up to go, but we have to see what happens,” Hamilton said.
source: Advocate, Council to vote on spending cap, By Alexandra Fenwick, February 25 2008
