CLARION, Pa. (EYT) — Clarion County might pay off all or part of its debt after all facts and figures relating to the debt are presented at the May 11th commissioners’ meeting.
Such action could also allow a decrease in taxes or elimination of the aside millage for debt, depending on the amount of debt retired.
Chief Clerk Jillian Stephens was authorized on Tuesday morning to collect the information “for a payoff of all or part of the county’s debt and to sunset all or a portion of the debt service tax.”
Citing good stewardship of Clarion County funds, Commissioner Ted Tharan said that when he and Commissioner Ed Heasley arrived five years ago and talked, they said that they would like to pay off the estimated debt of nearly $6 million.
“We’re at the point now that we’re able to pay that money off or pay that debt off because we’ve been good stewards and saved money,” said Tharan. “If we were to pay the debt off this year, we will save approximately $506,000.”
The debt is scheduled to pay off on December 31, 2030.
“And, at that point, if we let it go to the maximum, we would have paid a total of $6,867,762. Approximately $1,203,000.00 of it is interest,” according to Tharan.
“It will take about a month to pay off our debt, whether we pay it entirely off or hold a little bit because of needs at the Human Services building on Seventh Avenue, but it will be a substantial saving to the residents.”
The debt service tax is currently one and a half mills, and whether all or part of that is eliminated will be determined by the facts that are gathered during the next month, and Tharan said there will be some sort of tax decrease.
As of April 15, the total amount due is $3,959,601.47. and the county payments are $38,800.92 each month. Each year the county takes a little bit more in than that, and the county has been setting that money aside in a separate account that now has $502,630.92.
“That money can be placed entirely on the principal, and we could draw from that,” continued Tharan. “Maybe we leave a month against the Human Service Building because we can recoup that back in rent from the state. Those are some of the numbers that we’ve got to get figured out and finalized yet.”
The commissioners have not borrowed any money in the last five years and had inherited the debt.
“We really don’t know how much was borrowed over the years, but there were several loans and even combined into one at some point. The last time money was borrowed was probably for the purchase of the old hospital building and the 330 Main Street building.”
Over the years, commissioners also refinanced the debt because of lower interest rates.
Commissioner Wayne Brosius, who served for four years before Tharan and Heasley were elected, said there was no money put aside for the prosed construction of a courthouse annex.
“There was no plan to borrow money right away or raise taxes, but it might have come eventually down the road,” Brosius added.
Obviously proud of the commissioners’ accomplishments during the last five years, managing money and taking advantage of grants, Tharan said, “If you stop and think of what has been done in the last five years, we have not borrowed any money.
“Everything that we have done has been bought and paid for — the probation offices, all of the windows and renovations in the courthouse, the district attorney’s office, and the future home of the 9-1-1 and Emergency Management Center in the old Sorce warehouse in Shippenville.”
