Blount County’s current debt position:

Clearly Blount County has a large debt due to bonds issued for construction of the Justice Center, several schools, Courthouse renovations, the Blount County Planning Commission, the health department facility, and other obligations. Unfortunately those projects were all supported on a piece meal basis and without any reliance on financial planning strategies. Also the types of bonds – fixed rate versus variable rate – and the use of rate swaps created large uncertainties in the debt service obligations of the County. Also the practice of rolling over a bond to delay payment has just added more debt.