Town Debt $15M, Assets Total $49M

Published 5:26 pm Tuesday, September 24, 2013

FARMVILLE — Town officials kicked their assets up for review and comparison with long-term debt.

According to information provided to Town Council by Town Manager Gerald Spates, the Town of Farmville had $17,930,000 in long-term debt as of June 30, with $2.4 million Prince Edward County owes the Town for its portion of the library project bringing the actual debt—repayment of bonds used to fund a variety of projects—down to $15,435,979, Spates said.

Total Town assets come at $49,614,221, with $42 million being the value of Town-owned buildings and $7.4 million in land owned by the Town.

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That acreage includes such properties as Wilck’s Lake and Mottley Lake.

The town manager presented the information in response to a request from Town Council member David E. Whitus.

“If you’re going to look at your debts,” Spates said, “you ought to look at your assets… I just thought it was interesting to see how much assets we have, compared to our debt.”

The Town’s debt includes bond repayment for a variety of items, including $1.18 million to purchase the golf course, $780,000 to buy the Field Of Dreams, $700,000 to renovate the banquet room at the golf course, $750,000 spent on the Milnwood Road project, $370,000 used toward closing the landfill and $200,000 to purchase seven police cars.

Other projects included in a 2012 $15 million bond refinancing package are the construction of the new Farmville-Prince Edward Community Library, the new municipal building ($4.6 million outstanding), the purchase of Mottley Lake ($1.9 million outstanding), and a water tank project ($1.4 million outstanding).

Whitus, who pointed out that the Town has been making progress reducing its debt, asked how the building and land values were determined in arriving at the asset valuation.

“This is what we got them insured for,” Spates said of the buildings. “Most of the buildings, that’s what those figures are.”

The building values include the value of their contents.

Some of the buildings are pump stations and distribution systems related to the Town’s water and waste water systems.

As for the land values used in the compilation of assets, the town manager said those were “from the County, from the assessed value.”

Spates offered the opinion that the assessed values would be low.

Buildings

The 52 Town-owned buildings, and not all are actual buildings but, instead, infrastructure/facilities, include five at the Farmville Regional Airport—administration building ($163,720), terminal building ($279,948), maintenance hangar ($362,118), fueling system ($27,149, and maintenance building ($40,782).

Others include the Farmville Area Bus Station ($1,177,038) and fueling station ($147,599), the new municipal building ($9,195,762), the firehouse ($770,701), town shop/storage warehouse-shed building ($223,575), shop building and storage warehouse ($890,094), Crute Stage ($60,000), Farmer’s Market ($61,000), Train Station ($362,118), Train Station caboose ($34,057), South Street Conference Center ($735,077), Golf Course and Clubhouse ($845,743), Fireman’s Sports Arena ($490,700), a cabin at Mottley Lake ($163,503), the manor house at Mottley Lake ($396,888) , the Wilck’s Lake community building ($61,504), the Wilck’s Lake Skate park ($43,377), the Farmville-Prince Edward Community Library ($3,801,823), the former library building ($475,225), the probation/parole building ($720,758), Longwood Avenue property ($137,123), wastewater treatment plant ($4,521,315), wastewater-pump stations, flumes ($6,080,935), 10 sewage lift stations, the water plant operations building ($2,723,687), the settling basins/flocculation tank ($1,833,414), three pump stations, three water pressure stations, and five water storage tanks.

Land/Property

Property owned by the Town includes 201.97 acres at the airport ($660,850), 83.95 acres at the landfill ($317,400), 68.78 acres at the water treatment plant ($233,000), 167.78 acres at Wilck’s lake ($1,053,300), 91.37 acres at the golf course ($278,430), 7.71 acres of parkland ($1,007,800), 147.11 acres at Mottley Lake ($264,500), 24.06 acres at the Fireman’s Sports Arena ($122,800), 51.38 acres at the wastewater treatment plant ($523,200) and 4.99 acres in parking lots ($805,900).