ARTICLE
7 AS AMENDED
RELATING TO DEBT
MANAGEMENT ACT JOINT RESOLUTIONS
SECTION 1. This article consists of joint resolutions that are
submitted pursuant to
Rhode
Island General Laws § 35-18-1, et seq.
SECTION 2. Information Technology
Improvements.
WHEREAS, The division of taxation is the primary revenue collecting
agency for the
State of
three billion dollars per year. Currently an assortment of
software systems is being utilized to
administer these taxes and fees. The most critical of these
systems is built on forty (40) year old
technology that is increasingly difficult and expensive to use
and maintain; and
WHEREAS, Recognizing the
need to better serve the citizens of
need to modernize its technology, and to support related
tax enforcement activities, the State of
integrated tax system that would centralize all taxpayer
information in one computer system; and
WHEREAS, The State of
Rhode Island is actively reforming its education system by,
among other initiatives, developing enterprise data systems
that will offer five platforms,
including the instruction management system and the educator
evaluation system. These data
systems will provide an unprecedented level of student and
teacher data to track student, teacher,
and school performance and address the student
achievement gaps; and
WHEREAS,
and state schools need to upgrade their existing
technology infrastructure in order to provide
twenty-first century technology-based learning, including
e-learning opportunities, on-line
textbooks, and on-line assessments. In addition, several LEAs have insufficient wireless access
in their classrooms to access new data systems and
on-line resources; and
WHEREAS, The project costs associated with these information
technology
improvements are estimated to be $44.8 million. The total
financing obligation of the State of
fund and $0.5 million allocated to pay the associated
costs of financing. Total payments on the
State’s obligation over ten (10) years on the $45.3
million issuance are projected to be $66.6
million, assuming an average interest rate of 4.0%. The
payments would be financed within the
department of administration from general revenue
appropriations; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED,
That this general assembly hereby approves financing
in an amount not to
exceed $45.3 million for the provision of funds for
information technology improvements,
including $0.5 million to pay costs of financing; that $19.8
million be made available from the
project fund for improvements to the technology
infrastructure of local education agencies; that
$25.0 million be made
available from the project fund for an integrated tax system; and provided
further, that any funding amount from federal forfeiture
funds for law and tax enforcement
received for these purposes may be used to reduce the amount
of borrowed funds; be it further
RESOLVED,
That this joint resolution shall take effect
immediately upon its passage by
the general assembly.
SECTION 3. Rhode Island Airport Corporation.
WHEREAS, The Rhode
Island economic development corporation is a public
instrumentality of the State of
pursuant to
"act"); and
WHEREAS, The act declares, in part, that new industrial,
manufacturing, recreational,
and commercial facilities are required to attract and
house new industries and thereby reduce the
hazards of unemployment; and that unaided efforts of private
enterprises have not met, and
cannot meet, the needs of providing those facilities due to
problems encountered in assembling
suitable building sites, lack of adequate public service,
unavailability of private capital for
development, and the inability of private enterprise alone to
plan, finance, and coordinate
industrial, recreational, and commercial development; and
WHEREAS, The act further declares it to be the public policy of the
state to furnish
proper and adequate airport facilities within the state and
to encourage the integration of these
facilities so far as practicable; and
WHEREAS, In furtherance of these goals, it is the policy of the state
to retain existing
industries and to induce, encourage and attract new industries
through the acquisition,
construction, reconstruction and rehabilitation of industrial,
manufacturing, recreational, and
commercial facilities, as well as transportation, residential,
environmental, utility, public service,
institutional and civic and community facilities, and to develop
sites for such facilities; and
WHEREAS, The act has empowered the
corporation to establish subsidiary corporations to exercise its
powers and functions, or any of
them, and, pursuant to such power, the
established the
operate airport facilities in the state; and
WHEREAS, The act provides that the
power to purchase, take, receive, lease or otherwise
acquire, own, hold, improve, use and
otherwise deal in and with, real or personal property, or any
interest therein, wherever situated;
and
WHEREAS, The act also provides that the
the power to sell, mortgage, lease, exchange, transfer or
otherwise dispose of or encumber any
project, (or in the case of a sale, to accept a purchase
money mortgage in connection therewith) or
to grant options for any such purposes with respect to
any real or personal property or interest
therein, all of the foregoing for such consideration as the
determine. Any lease by the
part of the
such terms or conditions, with or without an option on the
part of the lessee to purchase any or all
of the leased property for such consideration, at or
after the retirement of all indebtedness
incurred by the
corporation shall determine; and
WHEREAS, The act authorizes the
borrow money and issue bonds for any of its corporate
purposes; and
WHEREAS, Pursuant to §§
35-18-3 and 35-18-4 of
the
"bonds") for the
purpose of providing funds to the
the various capital projects including, but not limited
to, a de-icer management system, runway
and taxiway improvements, noise mitigation and land
acquisition, and facility developments (the
“Fiscal Year 2013 Airport Project"), funding
capitalized interest, costs of issuing the bonds and
related costs, and the establishment of reserves for the
project and the bonds, including a debt
service reserve fund; and
WHEREAS, The
term borrowings to fund timing differences between
construction activities and receipt of federal
grants;
WHEREAS, The financing of the Fiscal Year 2013 Airport Project will
be accomplished
through one or more loan agreements having the
such agreement or agreements to require that the
payments in an amount no less than the debt service on the
bonds; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED,
The general assembly hereby approves the
development corporation's issuance of the bonds. The bonds will
be special obligations of the
under a loan agreement with the
accounts, and properties and the proceeds thereof pledged therefor, and thus the
economic development corporation's maximum liability will be
limited to loan repayments
received under the loan agreement and the aggregate amount of
such other funds, accounts,
properties, and proceeds; and be it further
RESOLVED,
That the total amount of debt approved to be issued in
the aggregate shall
be not more than $174,000,000. Total debt service on the
bonds is not expected to exceed
$12,000,000 annually and
$351,000,000 in the aggregate based on level annual payments, an
average interest rate of 6.83%, and a 30-year maturity. Total
debt service on short-term
borrowings to fund timing differences between construction
activities and receipt of federal
grants is not expected to exceed $6,700,000 annually and
$34,000,000 in the aggregate based on
an average interest rate of 4.00% and an 8-year maturity;
and be it further
RESOLVED,
That the general assembly hereby approves the
corporation's entering into the loan agreements described above.
Payments under the loan
agreements shall be derived exclusively from project revenues
and such other proceeds, funds,
accounts, projects and the proceeds thereof as the
therefore; and be it further
RESOLVED,
That none of the bonds or the loan agreements shall
constitute indebtedness
of the state or a debt for which the full faith and
credit of the state is pledged or a moral
obligation thereof; and be it further
RESOLVED,
That this resolution shall apply to debt issued within
one (1) year of the
date of passage of this resolution.
SECTION 4. Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation
WHEREAS, The
public corporation of the State of
and agency exercising public and essential governmental
functions of the state, created by the
general assembly pursuant to
WHEREAS, Pursuant to the
act, the corporation is designated to carry out the provisions
of the act; and
WHEREAS, Also pursuant
to the act, the purposes of the corporation include the
planning, design, construction, financing, management,
ownership, operation, and maintenance of
transfer stations, waste processing facilities, resource
recovery facilities, and all other solid waste
management facilities and the provision of solid waste
management services to municipalities and
persons within the state; and
WHEREAS, For the purpose
of planning, designing, constructing, financing, managing,
owning, operating, and maintaining transfer stations, waste
processing facilities, resource
recovery facilities, and all other solid waste management
facilities and providing solid waste
management services to municipalities and persons within the
state, the corporation is authorized
to issue from time to time its negotiable bond and notes
in one or more series in such principal
amounts as in the opinion of the corporation shall be
necessary to provide sufficient funds for
achieving its purpose, including the payment of interest on the
bonds and notes of the
corporation, the establishment of reserves to secure the bonds
and notes, and the making of all
other expenditures of the corporation incident to and
necessary or convenient to carrying out its
purposes and powers; and
WHEREAS, Pursuant to
corporation has requested the approval of the general assembly of
the corporation’s issuance of
not more than $40 million of revenue bonds (the “bonds)
for the purpose of providing funds for
capital projects and for costs associated with the bonds
including capitalized interest, debt service
reserve and costs of issuance; and
WHEREAS, The corporation will use the bond proceeds to fund the
design and
construction of a leachate pretreatment
facility to comply with projected changes in discharge
standards for the disposal of wastewater, including leachate, into a public sewer system. The
treatment facility (the “facility” or the “project”) is
expected to have the capacity of pretreating
650,000 gallons of wastewater daily and utilize
sequencing batch reactor technology for
wastewater treatment; and
WHEREAS, The corporation currently discharges wastewater/leachate flows from
several sources from its solid waste operations, including leachate from primary and secondary
collection systems in phases II/III, IV and V of the central
landfill, underdrains constructed under
the liners of various sections of the landfill as
required by
environmental management (“RIDEM”) regulations, discharge from the
phase I hot spot
treatment system operated as part of superfund remediation
requirements, and condensate from
the landfill gas collection and treatment systems and
sanitary flows from the various buildings
and facilities on site; and
WHEREAS, The landfill-related leachate is
currently discharged through the
sewer system to the
WHEREAS, The corporation does not currently pretreat
the collected flows prior to
discharge into the Cranston WWTF; and
WHEREAS, The corporation has received final approval from the RIDEM
for the
construction of phase VI of the landfill, which will include a
primary and secondary leachate
collection system and will operate for approximately 20 years;
and
WHEREAS, Municipal
wastewater treatment plants that the corporation can potentially
discharge into are currently implementing upgrades to their
facilities to meet lower effluent
discharge standards required by their permits with RIDEM; and
WHEREAS, The corporation has previously engaged an engineering
consultant to
conduct a preliminary evaluation of future requirements to
treat wastewater discharges from the
various operations at the Shun Pike facilities; and
WHEREAS, Over the past
several years the engineering consultant has been assisting the
corporation in evaluating approaches to treat wastewater flows,
consisting primarily of landfill
leachate, to meet the discharge standards established by
municipal wastewater treatment facilities
that are in proximity to the corporation’s operations; and
WHEREAS, The engineering consultant has issued a report indicating
that based on these
standards, and the more stringent effluent standards
anticipated in the future, the corporation will
be required to construct a new pretreatment plant
facility on-site to comply with these standards
prior to discharging wastewater into any municipal sewer
system; and
WHEREAS, The engineering consultant has proposed utilizing a
reliable, cost-effective
and high-efficiency technology, sequential batch
reactors, which are basically industrial tanks in
which all metabolic processing and solid / liquid
separation occurs in one tank and in a
continuously repeated time sequence; and
WHEREAS, Sequential
batch reactor processes are known to save more than 60% of the
expenses required for conventional activated sludge processing
and achieve high effluent quality
in a very short aeration time; and
WHEREAS, The estimated cost of the project is anticipated to be
approximately $35
million to $40 million; and
WHEREAS, In the event
that not all of the bond proceeds are used to carry out the
specified project, the corporation will use any remaining funds
to pay debt service on the bonds;
now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED,
That this general assembly hereby approves the
corporation’s issuance of
not more than the total of the competitively awarded
contract plus financing costs, or $40 million,
whichever is less, of bonds for the purpose of providing funds
for the project and for costs
associated with bonds including capitalized interest, debt
service reserve and costs of issuance;
and be it further
RESOLVED,
That the bonds will be general obligations of the
corporation payable from
the corporation’s revenues and thus the corporation’s
maximum liability will be for the total debt
service on the bonds which is estimated to be $3.0 million
per year or $59 million in the
aggregate based on an average interest rate of 4.0 percent and
a 20 year maturity; and be it further
RESOLVED,
That the bonds will not constitute indebtedness of the
state or any of its
subdivisions or a debt for which the full faith and credit of the
state or any of its subdivisions is
pledged except to the extent that the state provides the
corporation with annual budget
appropriations pursuant to
revenues are not otherwise sufficient to pay debt service on
the bonds, the maximum possible
financial obligation of the state under the bonds will be to
appropriate for any deficiency; and be
it further
RESOLVED,
That this joint resolution shall take effect
immediately upon its passage by
this general assembly, provided that the delivery of the
bonds shall be not later than one (1) year
from the date of such passage.
SECTION 5. GARVEE Program.
WHEREAS, The Rhode
Island Department of Transportation (“RIDOT”) has undertaken
five (5) major transportation projects, and these projects
were either substantially completed or
under construction in the year 2011; and
WHEREAS, The construction of these projects was deemed critical in
order to preserve
and maintain the public safety and continued economic
success and viability of the State of
WHEREAS, RIDOT explored
various options to finance the costs of the five (5) major
transportation projects and determined that the federal-aid
financing program authorized in
federal law by Section 311 of the National Highway System
Designation Act of 1995 and
commonly referred to as the Grant Anticipation Revenue Vehicle
Program (“GARVEE
Program”) represented the best financing mechanism for
the State of
the GARVEE Program accelerated the funding and
construction of the five (5) major
transportation projects; and
WHEREAS, The General
Assembly, in Chapter 376, Article 36, Sections 8 and 9 of the
Rhode Island Public Laws of 2003, granted RIDOT,
through the Rhode Island Economic
Development Corporation (“RIEDC”), the authorization
to issue bonds (“GARVEE Bonds”) or
other debt instruments backed by future appropriations for
federal-aid transportation projects
whereby such amounts are used to cover an assortment of
bond-related costs, including principal
and interest payments, issuance costs, insurance, and
other costs incidental to a financing; and
WHEREAS, The original Public Corporation Debt Management
authorization in Chapter
376, Article 36, Sections 8 and 9 of the Rhode Island
Public Laws of 2003 included a total of
$709.6 million in GARVEE funding to be distributed
across five projects, as follows: $126.2
million for the
million for the
(FRIP), and $107.2 million for Route 403; and
WHEREAS, Additional
grants and Federal earmark funding have been received for the
completion of the
for the
have proven to be lower than the funding required; and
WHEREAS, The reallocation of GARVEE funds to the
will allow an equal amount of Federal highway funding to
be applied to other highway projects
included in the Rhode Island Transportation Improvement Program
(“TIP”); and
WHEREAS, The reallocated GARVEE financing associated with these
projects is
estimated to be:
(1) For the
million three hundred eighty two thousand five hundred sixty
six dollars ($127,382,566); (b) the
total debt issuance of GARVEE and/or other than GARVEE
Bonds associated with payment of
the capital costs, financing costs, costs of issuance or
insurance or credit enhancement would be
an amount not to exceed one hundred thirty five million
eight hundred twenty five thousand
dollars ($135,825,000); (c) with respect to the total debt
issuance of one hundred thirty five
million eight hundred twenty five thousand dollars
($135,825,000) referenced in subsection (b)
above, an amount not to exceed twenty five million two
hundred forty eight thousand dollars
($25,248,000) of bonds would be repaid by the State of
funds (the "State Match Bonds"); (d) total debt
service payments on the State Match Bonds over
an expected twenty (20) year period on the twenty five
million two hundred forty eight thousand
dollars ($25,248,000) issuance are projected to be thirty
seven million four hundred fifty eight
thousand dollars ($37,458,000), assuming an average coupon
rate of 5.1%; and (e) the debt
service payments on the State Match Bonds are supported from
the Motor Fuel Tax Allocation as
hereinafter defined; and total debt service on all bonds of two
hundred four million five hundred
thirty two thousand nine hundred twenty dollars
($204,532,920); and
(2) For the
issuance of GARVEE and/or other than GARVEE Bonds associated
with payment of the capital
costs, financing costs, costs of issuance or insurance or
credit enhancement would be an amount
not to exceed $75,845,000; and (c) no State Match Bonds
will be issued in connection with the
covered by the FHWA funds due the State of
one hundred eighteen million four hundred twenty two
thousand five hundred dollars
($118,422,500); now, therefore, be
it
RESOLVED,
That this General Assembly finds that the Projects are
essential public
facilities and are of a type and nature consistent with the
purposes and within the powers of the
Department of Transportation
to undertake, and hereby approves that the
and
Island, and that it is in
the best interests of the State to maximize the use of proceeds from the
GARVEE bonds already
issued. Therefore, this General Assembly hereby approves the following
reallocation in GARVEE bond proceeds:
(1) For the
twenty seven million three hundred eighty two thousand five
hundred sixty six dollars
($127,382,566) in GARVEE
Bonds, the repayment of which shall be derived from and supported
by FHWA funds due the State of
two hundred forty eight thousand dollars ($25,248,000) in
State Match Bonds and to incur and
pay debt service payments for such State Match Bonds in
an amount not to exceed thirty seven
million four hundred fifty eight thousand dollars
($37,458,000) and total debt service on all bonds
of two hundred four million five hundred thirty two
thousand nine hundred twenty dollars
($204,532,920) as specified
in (1) above for bonds issued for the
debt service payments to be made from the Motor Fuel Tax
Allocation, as hereinafter defined, or
such other revenue source as the Rhode Island General
Assembly shall designate from time to
time for the construction, design, maintenance,
completion, finance costs, including, but not
limited to, costs of issuance, credit enhancement, legal
counsel and underwriter fees and expenses
and other costs associated with the
(2) For the
GARVEE Bonds, the repayment
of which shall be wholly derived from and supported by FHWA
funds due the State of
million four hundred twenty two thousand five hundred dollars
($118,422,500); and be it further
RESOLVED,
That no other changes in allocation or expenditure are
authorized beyond
the amendments included in this Joint Resolution, and
that no additional GARVEE bond issuance
is required beyond the limits specified in Chapter 376,
Article 36, Sections 8 and 9 of the Rhode
Island Public Laws of 2003.
SECTION 6. This article shall take effect upon passage.