Birmingham, AL – Jefferson County's commission chairman has proposed using excess revenues from a sales tax for a school bond issue to avert bankruptcy from a sewer bond debt fiasco.
Bettye Fine Collins said today the one-cent sales tax for the school bond issue is generating more revenue than is needed for those bond payments. She said the excess could be used to make payments due on sewer bonds, if the commission and the Legislature agree to the change.
Democratic state Representative John Rogers is co-chairman of the Jefferson County delegation. He said legislators wouldn't go along with using money from the school sales tax to pay off the sewer debt. The Jefferson County delegation often is divided, but Rogers said he expected delegation members to agree this time.
Alabama's most populous county has teetered on the brink of bankruptcy after being hit with huge payments as interest rates rose from years of risky, multibillion-dollar bond deals.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating at least some of the bond deals.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)