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Best Practices for Waivers of Attorney Conflicts by Local Governments
Lawyers often ask their local government clients to waive conflicts of interest. Here are some suggested rules for how a local government should handle conflict waiver requests from its outside lawyers: Rule #1 Keep in mind that it’s in the outside lawyer’s interest...
Overcoming the Bike Rack Effect
We’ve all been in meetings like this — I just didn’t know there was an accepted term for the phenomenon –Imagine a city council meeting with three agenda items: a $100 million power plant zoning approval, a request to build a $10,000 bike rack for city sidewalks and a...
Affordable Housing Resources from our presentation at the Managers’ Conference
We’ll be participating in a presentation about Chapel Hill’s affordable housing successes at the NCCCMA summer conference in Beaufort this week – our presentation will be on Friday morning. During our presentation we’ll be...
GFOA’s Rethinking Local Government Revenue Systems – Will we ever be able to do that here?
GFOA is working with some other stakeholders on a project called “Rethinking Local Government Revenue Systems.” Here are links to Part 1 and Part 2 of the published work. The arguments in these articles will be familiar to many: our government revenue systems reflect...
My general obligation bond authorization won’t cover my project costs. What now?
What if you need more money for your project than the voters approved? Imagine this situation: Jefferson County had a bond referendum in November 2020, and the voters approved up to $5,000,000 in bonds to build a recreation center. After completing design, the County...
How to Issue “Green Bonds”
In a recent post, we’ve pointed out the potential advantages of issuing Green Bonds, including potentially lower interest rates. In this post, we’re going to tell you how to issue bonds that carry the Green Bonds designation. This process calls for you to take steps...
SB 473, elected officials on nonprofit boards – an explainer on what’s covered and how to comply
As of January 1, 2022, elected officials may not participate in making or administering contracts to nonprofit organizations with which they are associated. This prohibition is part of SB 473 which aims to prohibit conflicts of interest among local elected officials,...
Simplifying Water and Sewer District Administration
County Water and Sewer Districts were created to allow counties to provide water and sewer service to discrete populations. With encouragement from USDA lending programs, many counties created several of these districts, especially counties in rural areas. Over time,...
When is your affiliated nonprofit or outside advisory group subject to open meetings and public records laws?
"Your Town Council wants to establish a group to make recommendations to the Council about allocating funds coming to the Town under the American Rescue Plan. The Council is thinking about establishing a committee of Town staff and local stakeholders, but is also...
New Study Shows Green Bonds Leading to Lower Interest Rates for Issuers
“Green Bonds” are bonds issued to fund an environmentally friendly or beneficial project. Bond issuers attach the “green” label on bonds in hopes of receiving a lower interest rate than they would otherwise. This once-theoretical benefit to issuers of Green...