Brazos County commissioners make inroads on $100 million transportation bond

The Eagle
Bailey Brown
May 10, 2023

The Brazos County Commissioners Court on Tuesday approved obligation bonds for portions of the $100 million transportation bond approved by voters in November of last year.

The county transportation bond proposition passed with 37,304 votes in favor (67.1%) to 18,259 votes against (32.9%). During the Tuesday morning meeting, the commissioners approved $9.3 million of bonds for upgrades in facilities and $27.9 million of bonds for county roads and Texas Department of Transportation roads.

The court also was notified by Dennis Waley, a county financial advisor, that the county received a positive upgrade in its bond rating.

“The county received a very well-deserved upgrade in your bond rating from Standard & Poors, [a credit rating agency,] from AA to AA plus. Congratulations,” Waley told the commissioners. “In the rating report they talked about the large and growing economy and continued expected growth due to the presence of Texas A&M and ongoing developments, strong management with good financial policies and practices and consistently positive operating performance. So all things you can be very proud of as a governing body.”

Regarding the bond sales, Waley told the commissioners they were able to sell the general obligation bonds after receiving seven bids for the projects.

“The low bid was from KeyBank at 3.51%, the cover bid was from UMB at 3.54%, so very close. Which is what you want to see, you want to see everybody there close together,” he said. “You sold your [certificate of obligation bonds] to Baird, that sale had six bids. Baird came in at 3.55%, the cover bid came in at 3.55% a little bit higher, and the third bid came in at 3.55% and a little bit higher.”

In response, Judge Duane Peters was happy to hear the results.

“I know the county is in good financial condition and of course certainly [Standard & Poors] recognized that,” he said. “I was glad to see we got an upgrade on that.”

Precinct 1 Commissioner Steve Aldrich also offered comments after Waley’s presentation regarding the city’s debt service account.

“I think if we take a look at what our debt service projections were that we received from the auditor, our budget officer being able to do what we had originally planned to do $20 million per year on the idea of the referendum debt that we had,” he said at the meeting. “But to be able to step that up to [$30 million] and to add 10 certificates of obligation and another $10 million in that without having an adverse impact on what our original projections were, I think that’s good, too.”

According to Peters and the agreement, the $9.3 million worth of bonds for facility upgrade improvements will be used for the county courthouse; the former Bryan School District Administration Building owned by the county, including parking lot renovations for a public defender offices and other administrative services; the Brazos County Dispatch and Emergency Operations Center; the county sheriff department facilities including a central receiving and storage facility; and the payment of contractual obligations for professional services in connection with the projects.

The eight projects the bond includes are: widening the roadway on William D. Fitch from Arrington Road to Texas 6; interchange improvements on Texas 21 at Texas 47; widening F.M. 1688 to five lanes from F.M. 2818 to Texas 47; make F.M. 2818 a super street from F.M. 60 to Texas 6 North; improvements to the intersection of George Bush Drive and Wellborn Road; widen Texas 30 to five lanes from Associates Avenue to F.M. 158; and other county road reconstruction and improvements.

According to the agreement, the $27.9 million worth of bonds will provide funds for permanent public improvements, including designing, acquiring, constructing, improving and maintaining roads, bridges and highways within Brazos County, including the acquisition of land and rights-of-way; and the payment of contractual obligations for professional services in connection with the projects.

Peters said $20 million of the county transportation bond was for county roads and $80 million was for TxDOT projects.

“A third of the total transportation bond will be used in county roads and about two-thirds will be used in on-system TxDOT roads,” Peters said. “What we did is we went to TxDOT when we got the $100 million bond issue passed, we talked to them and the two cities to identify critical infrastructure highway type needs that were in the city or out, and TxDOT identified what they believed to be top priority and the two cities did, too.

“We didn’t want to borrow $100 million right away because it takes too long to spend it. What we did is go back to TxDOT and say, ‘What can we get done in the next two years?’ So [they] came up with about $20 million on projects that they believe they can get to within the next two years that this portion of the money can be spent on.”