The Virginian-Pilot
©
SPSA was hoping to get a state lending agency's blessing Tuesday on a $150 million deal to sell a trash-burning power plant.
Instead, the regional trash authority got a list of new demands that could slow its push to finalize the sale of a Portsmouth trash-to-energy plant.
On Tuesday, the Virginia Resources Authority repeated its contention that the Southeastern Public Service Authority has failed to deliver basic information about the sale, such as the timing of the deal, a plan to pay off debt and an inventory of assets that will change hands.
"VRA needs the whole story in order to make a prudent financial decision," said Sheryl D. Bailey, the Virginia Resources Authority 's executive director. "Right now, we have a very small part of the story at best and limited information from SPSA."
A resolution passed this week by the VRA's Portfolio Risk Management Committee is aimed at pulling more information out of SPSA and giving state and local
officials more of a role in eyeing the power plant deal.
For instance, the resolution will give a vote on the sale to each locality that SPSA services.
Those localities also would be asked to guarantee any remaining money owed to the VRA after the sale of the plant.
The resolution calls for VRA bond counsel to review the power plant deal. It also calls for three years of audited financial information from Wheelabrator and an agreement that spells out exactly how SPSA plans to pay back creditors. SPSA has more than $220 million in debt.
SPSA owes the Virginia Resources Authority $140 million. Bailey said her goal is to make sure the agency gets paid back once SPSA sells the power plant, one of its most valuable assets.
Bailey said her agency has been asking SPSA these same questions since August without a reasonable answer. SPSA representatives said they would be at the portfolio risk management committee meeting Monday but canceled hours before, saying they could provide no information beyond what was already provided.
"The committee was flabbergasted," Bailey said.
SPSA officials have maintained that it was impossible to produce information about the timing of the sale and the scope of SPSA's assets before and after the sale.
The SPSA board tentatively approved the Wheelabrator deal in September and voted for it again in November. The agency spent more than $3 million on consultants in the p ast year as it restructured its debt and reviewed proposals to buy SPSA assets. Another consultant, hired for $30,000 per month, is working on some of the information requested by the VRA, SPSA officials said.
Mike Saewitz, (757) 222-5207, mike.saewitz@pilotonline.com
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Yahoo
Good old days
Yes, Greenmun's vitrolic hatred of all things regional is well known. He prefers the parochialism of the far distant past when every city had a "landfill" and used open burning and simple piles of trash as the means to dispose of municipal waste. Ah yes, the good old days when a number of area mayors faced jail because local dumps did not comply with EPA mandates. Funny how when our new sanitary facilities were jointly developed, and we paid the lowest tip fees in the nation, we did not hear from Greenmun at all. He was tilting at other windmills. Now, of course, he senses an opening for his typical ill informed commentary; no matter, he has so isolated himself as an extremist that no one pays him any attention. So I won't either.
Same
And based on the number of thumbs down on all your comments, no one pays any attention to you either!
All sail an no anchor
Yes, aalto, only on Pilot on Line do the most seriously uninformed and the most intellectually challenged voters get to form their own majority. For me, this demonstrates why a republic is far superior in serving the public interest than a direct democracy. But I hope you continue to enjoy the company of Keith, Reid, et al, but since direct democracy is all sail and no anchor, it may not last long.
All-appointed, unaccountable regional government.
Mr. Barrett loves unaccountable, all-appointed regional government. It allows guys like him to refuse to be held accountable to taxpayers and voters. You know, those dumb sheep that exist only to be fleeced by self-anointed "business leaders" that buy off the political process? Folks, SPSA is simply ONE EXAMPLE of the corruptions and mismanagement we suffer due to the unelected regional government we have forced upon us by the General Assembly and Republican and Democratic Party leadership. Follow the money (if you can) - and you will discover HOW abominations such as SPSA are created, by whom, and why ... we don't need Governor Kaine to APPOINT another board to make decisions, we need our elected representatives to step up, do their jobs, and make the decisions thay were elected to make.
Step back, take a deep breath
Yes, it is pretty sad when you need to call a reporter to get a copy of the proposed resolution. But that said, both parties need to act like adults, and reduce the level of confusion. Afterall, SPSA wants to pay the $150,000,000 from the sale to VRA to pay off bondholders; you would think they would act rationally to facilitate this action. That said, what if the sale were squashed by a combination of ineptitude or over reaching. Then, SPSA would still have the plant, but the debt to pay back by January of 2018 would be $220,000,000, plus $50,000,000 that would be necessary to spend to build additional landfill capacity at the regional landfill. The municipal tip fee for the six communities that pay the high rates could soar to over $300/ton. So much is riding on this process, and every city/county stands to benefit if this deal goes through. Let us all cool down and talk and this will be completed.
GO ahead and disapprove the sale vra
For those of you hoping they do just that, be careful what you ask for. If the VRA delays past Wheelabrator's deadline of 3/1/10 or disapprove the sale all together then SPSA will end up bankrupt, doors closed, and the 240 million dollar debt is left to the tax payers to pay off because the Governor has already said that the debt to the VRA will be paid off to keep from hurting the states credit rating. By who you ask well guess who that will be? Yes, the member communities even if that means the witholding of state monies to the member communities. So go ahead triumph the actions of the VRA all you want but it will only cost us the taxpayers more money and the trash will still need to be disposed of somewhere. Or the VRA can quit pandering to the Pilot, approve the sale, get the majority of its owed debt from SPSA through the proceeds of the sale paid down and work with SPSA and the Cosgrove bill's "savior" board on a plan for paying off the remaining debt.
So true Mike
It's amazing what gets uncovered when inept fiscal management of a public authority finally gets oversight by government auditors. Did you really think the VRA was going to keep their eyes closed and allow SPSA to continue on the path of destruction?
Just so I understand, to
Just so I understand, to what government auditors are you referring?
Sorry, let me be simple
Here we have a public authority (SPSA) managing taxpayer funds. Along steps in a government agency (VRA) that is asking questions about how you are spending taxpayer money, how you plan to get out of debt, what assets you have, what assets you plan to sell, what assets you will have left after the sale. SPSA cannot (or will not) answer.
I realize years of inept management at SPSA, you all played word games to hide your cushy appointment, but without going to the "clinton definition of what is, is" that sounds like an audit to me.
Care to explain the difference?
Highly rated
Well actually, I asked because our public accounting firm just issued their audit report which provided a fully clean management letter for SPSA, and I was not sure you had read it. I guess not. For some reason unknown to me, sources within VRA have taken to talking to the press instead of to us. Fact is, we really wan to to pay them $150,000,000 from the proceeds of the sale. We have provided all the information they requested, yet they still have other questions. These will be answered accurately as soon as the information is available. As I said above, if all parties start to act like adults, this deal, which we all want to occur, will happen. The remaining debt is secured by the agreement of every city to pay the municipal tip fee required to service debt, pay the cost of operations, with a margin of safety. That's why the debt is so highly rated.