AgdaPkt 2005-01-24 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS Long- Term Debt - Issues described in detail in Notes 6 and 7 to Financial Statements. During FY 2003/04 the City's Public Financing Authority issued $11.475 million of revenue bonds, and the Redevelopment Agency issued $33.997 million of tax allocation bonds. Outstanding Debt (in Millions) Governmental Business- Type Activities Activities Total 2004 2003 2004 2003 2004 2003 Varian ce $ $ $ $ $ $ Revenue bonds 30.774 27.915 10.225 10.415 40.999 38.330 6.963% General improvement bonds 5.625 7.175 5.625 7.175 -21.603% Tax increment bonds 44.890 11.010 44.890 11.010 307.720% Loans 0.381 0.423 1.997 2.018 2.378 2.441 -2.581 % Accrued sick leave and vacation 7.438 6.998 0.695 0.649 8.133 7.647 6.355% Total long term debt 89.108 53.521 12.917 13.082 102.025 66.603 53.184% SPECIAL ASSESSMENT DISTRICT DEBT Special assessment districts in different parts of the City have also issued debt to finance infrastructure and facilities construction in their respective districts. At June 30, 2004, a total of $38 million in special assessment district debt was outstanding, issued by three special assessment districts. This debt is secured only by special assessments on the real property in the district issuing the debt, and is not the City's responsibility, although the City does act as these Districts' agent in the collection and remittance of assessments. ECONOMIC OUTLOOK AND MAJOR INITIATIVES Redwood City is located on the west shore of the San Francisco Bay peninsula midway between San Francisco, 25 miles to the north, and San Jose, 1 7 miles to the south. The number of jobs in San Mateo County remains well below the levels reached before the 2001 recession. As of June 30, 2001 there were an estimated 420,100 jobs in San Mateo County while as of June 30, 2004 there were an estimated 352,500 jobs. This latter amount is slightly below the estimated number of jobs (359,500) as of June 30, 2003, which gives us hope that we are nearing the end of the job shedding phase and that we will begin to see jobs added in the near future. All quoted job numbers are from the State of California Employment Development Department and are not seasonally adjusted. The economic recession that the nation entered into in the spring of 2001 has been experienced locally as well. Given the San Francisco Bay Area's reliance upon technology and related industries, this slowdown has had a marked impact on several of the City's revenues that are sensitive to the level of business activity occurring in the surrounding area. While revenues have shown recent improvement, several key revenues, such as sales tax and transient occupancy taxes remain below the levels they were at in FY 2000/01. In year-to-year comparisons from FY 2002/03 to FY 2003/04, sales tax revenues have increased 4.34% from $15.1 million to $15.7 million, transient occupancy taxes have increased 18.3% from $1.55 million to $1.84 million (resulting from a voter-approved transient occupancy tax rate increase from 8% to 10%) while development related revenues have declined 6.6% from $2.05 million in FY 2002/03 to $1.92 million in FY 2003/04. According to information published by BT Commercial Real Estate, the vacancy rate for commercial office space in San Mateo County was 24.6% as of September 30, 2004. By comparison, in 1999 the vacancy rate for commercial office space was 1.2%. Redwood City currently had over 3.1 million square feet of vacant office space out of a total inventory of 9.9 million square feet as of September 30. Despite the current economic malaise, City 11