Stimulus bonds for sport complexes take step forward

McHenry County may have allocated all of its bonds and Boone County has not allocated a single dollar.  Look at the final paragraph—the Northwest Herald believes all the unused funds will go back to the State.  Boone County Board could do nothing until Growth Dimension passed judgment on the stimulus bonds—perhaps Growth Dimension can see to it that the stimulus bonds are allocated locally before the June cutoff.

allocate the last of McHenry County's economic stimulus bonding authority to two sports ventures are now on their way to the McHenry County Board.
Its Finance and Audit Committee voted Tuesday, 6-1, to recommend giving the proposed Lakewood Sportsplex $18 million of its bonding authority from the 2009 economic stimulus bill. The remaining $3.57 million will go to the proposed McHenry County K-Nines baseball stadium in Woodstock, far short of the $15 million asked for by its developer, EquityOne Sports Development.

McHenry County received $27.5 million in bonding authority for private projects under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. The bonds are meant to encourage lending for ready projects by giving investors a 45 percent refund of the federal taxes payable on them. The county only grants the ability to borrow and not the bonds themselves.

The state likely will collect the unused bonding authority in June from county and municipal governments, and authorize the Illinois Finance Authority, a self-financed state bonding and loan agency, to disburse it to shovel-ready projects. The state’s 102 counties and eight of its largest cities divided up $1.67 billion in stimulus bonding authority.

 

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