Kyle City Council discusses direction of $279M road bond

The Kyle City Council held a special workshop meeting July 23 to discuss the direction of the upcoming road bond election. The council approved preliminary engineering work on six of the proposed roads within the bond in April to determine what the cost estimates may be, what challenges and opportunities may arise and what a schedule for development could look like, as previously reported by Community Impact Newspaper.

While Mayor Travis Mitchell speculated the bond could be around $100 million at previous meetings, agenda documents indicate the bond could be $279 million for 10 road projects totaling around 15.6 miles in new, reconstructed and widened projects throughout the city.

Following discussion regarding how to divide the roads into two propositions, the council voted 4-2 to have all road projects in one proposition, meaning voters will either approve or reject all roads proposed on the bond. Council members Yvonne Flores-Cale and Michael Tobias voted against the motion.

SAMCO Capital, a firm that specializes in public finance and investment banking, brought forth two options regarding the issuance of general obligation funds and how that would affect the city's tax rate.

"We have to get any of the bonds that we are going to issue issued by 2032. In each of these scenarios, you get there by 2030. The difference between the two analyses is how quickly we can issue that full authorization," SAMCO Capital Managing Director Andrew Friedman said.

The first option would be to issue $40 million in 2023, $100 million in 2023, $70 million in 2027 and the remaining $69 million in 2030. The second option would slow down the issuances based on taxable values and market data.

Both options aim to keep the tax rate below $0.59 per $100 valuation.

Mitchell noted the upcoming bond price tag is much higher than the 2013 $36 million bond; however, the impact it will have on the tax rate will only be a third compared to the previous bond.

Based on an election timetable presented by the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, the council must adopt the ordinance calling for the Nov. 8 bond election with two readings between Aug. 10-22.