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have very different motives for operating, ways of measuring their success, and expectations <br />about the kind of process needed to complete a project. <br /> <br />Public projects that are completed in conjunction with the private sector can have significant <br />complications around public bidding laws, prevailing wage laws, and tax laws. In addition, there <br />is a prohibition around the "lending of credit" between a government and a private sector entity <br />that can cause some approaches to not work well. These limitations can cause public/private <br />projects to become extremely complex and, therefore, not very understandable for the average <br />citizen. In addition, citizens can often perceive a public/private partnership to be an <br />inappropriate subsidy to the private sector. <br /> <br />Staff has discussed some of the options for public/private partnerships on capital project <br />financing with the City's bond counsel and financial advisor a number of times over the past <br />several years. The advice consistently given by both advisors is that these kinds of arrangements <br />involving an additional private sector party for borrowing money are entered into for reasons <br />other than to achieve the lowest cost financing. They are generally entered into because a there <br />is not legal authority or political support to undertake a borrowing, or because the municipality is <br />out of room under borrowing limits. <br /> <br />The line between a borrowing method and construction method on some types of public/private <br />partnerships can be fuzzy. Attachment E includes information about types of public/private <br />partnerships on the construction management side. <br /> <br />The public/private partnership methods set out below are methods of borrowing for the public <br />sector partner. There are other types of public/private partnerships that are available for the <br />private sector to borrow funds, but those are not discussed here. <br /> <br />Conduit Financings: In some states (such as Washington), municipalities do not have the <br />flexibility that Oregon gives to its municipalities in terms of tax-exempt borrowing methods. In <br />order to enter into a lease type transaction, municipalities must engage a third party to implement <br />the borrowing. This is sometimes called a "63-20" financing, which refers to a section of the tax <br />code. <br /> <br />63-20 bonds are issued by the non-profit and the municipality's role is to make lease payments to <br />the non-profit and the non-profit uses that money to pay the debt service. The main reasons to <br />do this type of financing are to avoid debt limitations and public purchasing rules for the project <br />construction and/or equipping. <br /> <br />Because there are additional parties to the transaction, the fees and issuance costs are higher than <br />if the municipality were able to borrow directly from the credit markets. In addition, the third- <br />party conduit issuer may have a degree of control over the financing and the construction of the <br />project. There may be times when this option is a good choice because there is a reason (other <br />than to achieve the lowest cost) to package the financing of a facility with a private developer's <br />participation in the construction of the facility. In this type of financing, the governing body <br />gives up a significant amount of control over the project. <br /> <br /> L:\CMO\2004 Council Agendas\M040428\S040428A. doc <br /> <br /> <br />