Bolingbrook Mayor Roger Claar announced a plan Tuesday to restructure some of the suburb’s multimillion-dollar debt, creating an issue for the April 20 election.
By getting a lower interest rate on bonds to be paid in 2003, Claar hopes to save $600,000 over the next decade.
The restructuring would reduce interest rates to 4.6 percent from an average 7.25 percent, said Jay A. Keller, vice president of financial consultants Rodman & Renshaw Inc. of Chicago.
Last month, one of Claar’s three opponents, Terrence Droogran, the village’s former fire chief, released a platform saying Bolingbrook should restructure its debt.
Droogan said Bolingbrook’s long-term debt is $52 million, but Claar said the number is misleading because it includes interest on $33 million in bonds that the village is paying off.
He said Bolingbrook has applied for a grant to help pay the interest and is looking to President Clinton’s administration for $35 million.
Interest rates also can fluctuate if debt is paid off sooner than it is scheduled or if it is restructured with a lower interest rate. Therefore, residents may or may not wind up paying the $19 million in interest Bolingbrook is scheduled to pay.
Droogan counters that not including the amount of interest owed is misleading.
The issue of long-term debt has become an issue in the southwest suburbs after Romeoville’s $52 million debt, $25 million in principal and $27 million in scheduled interest, became a source of residents’ ire.
But Claar said the two debts are not comparable because Bolingbrook can spread its debt over nearly 44,000 people compared with fewer than 15,000 residents in Romeoville. The per capita debt, minus interest, is $1,173 in Romeoville, compared with Bolingbrook’s $796.
Bolingbrook’s per capita debt declines to $366 if debt from water and sewer projects is taken out. The water and sewer debt is to be paid by users of the upgraded service.
So far, money used for those payments has been abated through water and sewer bills from residents who use the service.
A new sewage treatment plant that will be built on the west side will supply future residents in that area, and plans are for it to be paid for by those residents.
Claar cites a large number of properties that have been platted and building permits granted as proof that the west side will boom.
But Droogan argues that if new residents don’t come, the entire village would pay for the treatment plant.
If no other bonds are sold for the next 10 years, Bolingbrook will have paid off its debt by 2013. Over that time, the per capita debt also would decline because the village is projected to grow to more than 71,400 residents.
