When fiscal 1999 ended June 20, state and local government debt in Iowa totaled $5.5 billion, a 4.41 percent increase since last year.

However, State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald labeled it a “modest increase,” noting that in the last five years debt increased by 19.3 percent.

“County debt increased 8.67 percent, school debt 3.29 percent and city debt about 4.88 percent,” said Fitzgerald. “Twenty-nine percent of debt is issued to finance public building or schools, while 24 percent is issued for utilities or sewers. Although debt did not increase drastically in the last year, a large portion of the existing debt has been used to either build new schools or fix up the aging infrastructure.”

Schools

In the Mid-Prairie School District, debt stands at $4,933,504, reflecting the bond issue passed in 1996 to district wide improvements and a large addition at the high school.

Nearby Highland School District has $3,187,485 debt, also reflecting bond issues for a new school and extensive renovation and remodeling of another.

For the Washington School District, debt is $914,742.32, lowest of the three Washington County districts.

Cities

The City of Washington with $4,834,929 has the highest municipal debt, $3 million more than second place Kalona with $l,172,986.

The other municipalities are, in descending order, Riverside, $644,783; Crawfordsville, $177,445; West Chester, $172,305.29; Brighton, $115,500 and Wellman, $112,869. The total of the seven municipalities is $7,489,818.

For Washington County itself, debt is $5,052,500.

The two largest classifications for outstanding debt are general obligations and revenue obligations, noted Fitzgerald. In fact, 44 percent of outstanding debt in the report consists of general obligations, generally repaid through property tax levies and general revenues. Another 32 percent of the debt is classified as revenue obligations, repaid from money generated by a specific facility or project.

An example in Kalona of revenue obligations is the recent waste improvement project.

State agencies reported outstanding obligations of $275 million, a decrease of 6.76 percent in the last year. Of that, $96.5 million in debt is for prisons, the highest single category. Others are $84 million, Iowa Communications Network, and $94.8 million for the Underground Storage Tank program.