Fulton County Commissioner Robb Pitts wants the commission to talk about a plan to refinance nearly $140 million in debt left over from 1990s-era Grady Memorial Hospital improvements, which the panel voted to do last month. Pitts, who has called the plan a “financial scheme” that is “bad, bad, bad public policy,” put the matter on Wednesday’s meeting agenda.
The deal will help stave off painful service cuts, sparing Fulton an upcoming payment and knocking $17 million off next year’s projected deficit. But beginning eight years from now, taxpayers will make up for it, when payments leap from $9 million to $16.7 million within a single year, and for the following seven years. Under the current payment plan, the debt would be paid off in 2022, but payments will continue until 2028 and cost more than $32 million extra.
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