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Refinancing KI bonds will save Green Bay $8.7 million

By Heather Graves
Staff Writer


GREEN BAY – The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday, Oct. 19, to approve the refinancing of the KI Convention Center Expansion project (KI-2) bonds to save the city nearly $9 million over the life of the bonds.

The refinancing provided the city a lower interest rate on the bonds from more than 6% to 2.8%, saving the city more than $300,000 each year, with an end payment due June 1, 2043.

It also rolls the December debt service payment into the bond refinancing.

“We did include, in the size of the issue, the funds necessary to make the Dec. 1 interest payment this year,” Todd Taves, with Ehlers & Associates, the city’s financial advisor, said. “The current projections indicates there will be no room tax revenue available, which is the same situation as in June, but unlike June, the city will not have to appropriate funds from any other source to make that payment. The first actual debt service payment that the city will have to make on the new bonds will be in June of next year.”

When the room tax fund took a hit in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Green Bay found itself in need of nearly $750,000 for its June 2021 debt service payment for KI-2.

District 4 Alderperson Bill Galvin said the bond refinancing will save the city a lot of the same “angst” it went through in June.

“This December we’ll be able to make our payment without having to rob Peter to pay Paul at all,” Galvin said. “This deal is going to benefit the entire Brown County taxpaying system of almost $9 million over the life of this loan, and I think that is huge. I can’t say enough how much that is going to affect us and everyone else going forward.”

The county and the six other area municipalities part of the room tax stabilization agreement had to pass a resolution to allow Green Bay to refinance the KI-2 bonds before the city was allowed to follow through with the process.

47 wards

The City Council unanimously adopted a resolution which divides the city into 47 wards beginning in 2022.

The resolution is based on the plan approved by the Brown County Board Sept. 22, which has 11 Brown County supervisory districts in the City of Green Bay.

Alderpersons will vote on the ordinance adopting the selected aldermanic redistricting map at its Nov. 2 meeting.

City sustainability update

Resiliency Coordinator Melissa Schmitz, along with members of the Sustainability Commission, gave the City Council an update of the city’s progress toward its goal of 100% clean energy by 2050, a resolution alderpersons adopted in May 2021.

Sustainability Commission Member John Arendt showed the council comparisons between Green Bay and cities of similar population, such as Everett, Washington, Somerville, Massachusetts and Naperville, Illinois. 

“If you look at their metric tons it almost seems like we are in line, but we are slightly higher,” Arendt said. “If we look at this as metric tons per city resident, it’s about .30 metric tons per resident here in Green Bay, compared to the other cities you can see it is .25, .15 and .25. What it tells me, knowing we still have additional data, we are definitely higher than comparison cities, but there are a lot of other factors that weigh into that. And also, if you look at the dates of their reports, we’re kind of a little behind them at getting started in this. These are cities that have already had opportunities to start reducing their carbon footprint.”

Schmitz said the next steps include obtaining additional data needed to effectively detail the city’s overall carbon footprint.

She said other next steps include:

• Seek funding to develop a community climate action plan.

• Communicate and engage with stakeholders.

• Develop mitigation strategies and policies.

• Track progress toward meeting greenhouse gas reduction goals. 

• Partner with other local governments on regional solutions to reduce carbon emissions.

“What cities do, what businesses do that have similar goals as this, is they create an annual report tracking your energy efficiency projects,” Schmitz said, “and we are not the only city in Brown County that is looking at this. The county is starting to look at this as well. I think together with the local governments and the tribal community we can do a lot. We can apply for grants together to make this a more efficient strategy.”

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