FY 2014 Popular Annual Financial Report FY 2014 Popular Annual Financial Report | Page 7

rating agencies in determining the
City’s overall credit-worthiness.
The major reserves include the
Unallocated Reserve, targeted
at 3 % of recurring General Fund
expenditures. It is designed to
be used for emergencies and
unanticipated expenses. The
Working Capital Reserve sets aside
one month of recurring General
Fund expenditures to provide
adequate operating cash during
normal revenue and expenditure
cycles. The largest reserve is
the Landfill Lease Reserve. This
reserve, in excess of $17 million,
originated from a one-time payment
to the City when it leased its landfill
in March of 2005. Our newest
reserve is the Business Continuity
Reserve, also targeted at 3% of
General Fund Expenditures. This
reserve is in place to ensure that
in the face of funding shortfalls,
service delivery will continue until
sound solutions to the shortfall
can be identified. The total reserve
amount adopted in the FY 2014
Budget is $44.4 million or 21.6% of
the City’s General Fund budget.
This amount is approximately
$14.1 million in excess of the 15%
overall reserve level specified in our
Financial Principles.

Bond Rating

Moody’s, Standard & Poors,
and Fitch rate our credit-worthiness
and they consider our reserves as
one of our strongest assets. The
rating agencies have all undergone
significant structural changes in
the methodology of assigning their
rating criteria. All three agencies
using their new methodology
affirmed the ratings for both the
General Obligation and Water
bonds.

These strong ratings allow us
to issue municipal debt vital to the
City’s infrastructure at a very low
cost to the City.

Debt

During FY 2014, the City
took advantage of the low cost of
borrowing and issued $14.5 million
in Permanent Improvement Bonds
and $29.0 million in Certificates of
Obligation to make various capital
improvements. The City also
issued $24.7 million in Water and
Sewer Revenue and Refunding
Bonds for the purpose of improving
and expanding existing water
and wastewater infrastructure.
During the year, the City paid down
principal of $30.2 million on our
general obligation and certificates
of obligation debt, $20.6 million on
our AT&T Stadium debt, and $20.0
million on our water and sewer and
storm water utility debt. At year-end,
the City had $685.5 million in debt, a
decrease of $2.7 million from 2013.

Awards

the Government Finance Officers
Association. We also received our
11th consecutive Achievement of
Excellence in Procurement Award
from the National Procurement
Institute, Inc. And in 2014, the City
achieved the State of Texas
Comptroller’s newest
level of recognition
for financial
transparency,
the Leadership
Circle Certificate at the
Platinum Level.

Priorities

Each year, the City Council
identifies community priorities that
guide us in allocating the City’s
resources. Understanding that we
are not seeing significant increases
in revenues and that making
meaningful progress on these
priorities may take several years,
the Council has continued working
on the priorities identified for Fiscal
Year 2013. Those were:
• Build a Thriving Community
• Enhance Regional Mobility
• Support Quality Education
• Define an Identifiable Brand

The City continued to be
recognized for its outstanding
reporting efforts. We again
received the Certificate of
Achievement for
Sales Tax Revenues
Excellence in Financial
FY 2000 - 2014
Reporting for our
$60,000,000
2013 Comprehensive
Annual Financial
$50,000,000
Report (CAFR),
$40,000,000
the Certificate
for Outstanding
$30,000,000
Achievement in
Popular Annual
$20,000,000
Financial Reporting
$20,000,000
for our 2013 PAFR,
and the Distinguished
$0
Budget Award for
FY 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14
our 2014 budget from

Popular Annual Financial Report

| 7