The Indian River County School District could have gotten advice on its proposed $8.3 million tax anticipation note from a leading financial expert who lives in the district had it been willing to share more information with the public.
Robert Auwaerter recently retired as head of the fixed-income division of Vanguard Group Inc., the biggest mutual-fund company in the world, where he managed 125 people who handled $750 billion in bonds and money market funds.
“I’d be happy to give them my viewpoint on [the tax anticipation note],” said Auwaerter, who has lent his financial savvy to a number of other local entities.
Auwaerter is the chairman of the Indian River Shores finance committee and he serves on Vero’s utilities commission, where he analyzed Florida Power & Light’s offer to buy Indian River Shore’s electric customers for $30 million.
Auwaerter showed up at Superintendent Mark Rendell’s Tuesday, Aug. 23 workshop, which had the tax anticipation note as an agenda item, but district personnel did not share enough information for him to give meaningful input on the financing plan.
The Indian River County School Board had been told by the district’s Chief Financial Officer Carter Morrison that the district needs a bridge loan to make it to November.
At the workshop, Morrison told the board to look at an analysis provided by the district’s outside financial advisor, Jonathan Ford, vice president of Tampa-based Ford & Associates, for details. That document, sent the day before – which did not give the board a lot of time to consider the facts – was not shared with the public.
Parts of the analysis flashed briefly on a screen, but when Auwaerter asked for a copy of the analysis, he was denied.
A school board member said a copy would be available to media, but none was forthcoming by press time.
Ford provided handouts with generic examples to help explain the financing plan and showed an unnamed school district’s monthly tax revenue, state funding, federal funding and expenditures in his presentation.
“Frankly, that’s the transparency lacking here. Why not show the real data [from Indian River County School District]?” Auwaerter said. “There is nothing proprietary in the information.”
The district has advertised a Request for Proposals, Morrison said, for banks to buy the $8.3 million of tax anticipation notes, but he did not go into detail.
Deciding if it is better to pay bond issuance, consulting and legal fees possibly offset by selling the notes at a premium in a favorable market, or whether a straight loan from a bank with a set interest rate would be less costly, is the kind of decision Auwaerter has a history of making with great success.
But the needed information to make that evaluation was withheld, making it another missed opportunity for the district and ultimately the taxpayer.
“Transparency is the best antiseptic,” Auwaerter said.