The impasse regarding a Wall Street bailout may present serious problems for businesses, large and small, or for individuals.
But some municipal and county government officials said they are feeling little pain from the tightening credit market.
“Really, right now, nothing has changed for us,” Dayton, Tenn. City Recorder Tom Solomon said Tuesday. “That is not sugar-coating, it is business as usual for us.”
A national-level liquidity logjam is not expected to affect the residents in Dayton, the Rhea County seat.
Several months ago the city borrowed $3 million to build an electric substation, Mr. Solomon said. The money will be repaid over the next 20 years.
“We are fine for the foreseeable future,” he said. “We use bond issues for capital purchases, and this could affect interest rates in the future.”
Bradley County Finance Director Lynn Burns said the financial health of the county is unchanged by Wall Street’s current ills.
It is the overall economy, mainly gas prices, that have caused the city to implement fuel monitoring to help better control costs, Ms. Burns said. She likened the adjustment to families and individuals watching their budgets.
“Right now, we are not trying to borrow anything, so that hasn’t been a problem,” Ms. Burns said. “We did not budget any major increases (in the fiscal year 2009 budget that began July 1).”
The county bond rating was recently upgraded to AA- by Standard & Poor’s, she said.
Bonds for $7.3 million to fund schools, the county’s last major bond sale, were issued in 2005 and are payable over 25 years, Ms. Burns said.
This year, about $54 million of bonds, mostly intended for public education, were refinanced, she said.
“So far the sales tax revenues have been fairly steady, so we are in pretty good shape,” Ms. Burns said.
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