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Senate Bill 2064 |
Senate Author: West et al. |
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Effective: 6-19-09 |
House Sponsor: Otto |
Senate Bill 2064 amends Government Code provisions relating to the issuance of state and local government securities, the issuance of private activity bonds, and the powers and duties of the Bond Review Board. The bill changes the deadlines for the board's submittal of its biennial statistical report on state securities and local government-issued bonds and other debt obligations and for submittal of its annual study regarding the state's current debt burden, and it authorizes the board to enter into a contract for services related to the collection and maintenance of information necessary to prepare the biennial statistical report.
For purposes of reserving a portion of the state ceiling for private activity bond issues, the bill includes multiple facilities in the scope of a project financed by the issuance of bonds other than qualified residential rental project, mortgage, or student loan bonds; allows an application for financing of sewage, solid waste disposal, and qualified hazardous waste facilities to include multiple facilities in multiple jurisdictions; allows the number of facilities in an application to be reduced as needed without affecting their project status; and sets a nonrefundable application fee of $500 per facility for a reservation or carryforward designation. The bill requires the board, if all applicants for a reservation have been offered a portion of the available state ceiling, to grant reservations in the order in which the applications are received.
Senate Bill 2064 increases the various population-based caps on the amount of the state ceiling that may be reserved before August 15 for the issuance of qualified mortgage bonds by housing finance corporations of different sizes, and it increases the cap on the amount of a qualified mortgage bond issue for which such a corporation may receive an allocation.
Senate Bill 2064 changes the range of utilization percentages used as a basis for determining a housing finance corporation's allocation of the state ceiling the next time it becomes eligible for a reservation by decreasing the upper limit and setting a floor on current utilization percentages so that the maximum amount of the state ceiling that may be reserved for a corporation whose utilization percentage is less than 25 percent is the amount to which it otherwise would be eligible multiplied by 25 percent. The bill prohibits a housing finance corporation from being penalized in the program year if, in the preceding program year, 50 percent or less of the aggregate state ceiling available for reservations by issuers of qualified mortgage bonds has been used in connection with bond issues closed on or before that date or has had carryforward elections filed on or before that date. An issuer with carryforward available from the state ceiling created by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 is not restricted by project limits for the state ceiling, and an issuer who uses the carryforward to issue qualified mortgage bonds or mortgage credit certificates is not subject to the utilization percentage calculation.
Senate Bill 2064 changes both the submission deadline for an application for a program year and the deadline for the board's granting of a reservation from December 1 to November 15 of that year, raises the cap on the amount of a reservation that may be granted for a single project before August 15 from $25 million to $40 million for an issuer of qualified mortgage bonds other than the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs or the Texas State Affordable Housing Corporation, and revises the single-project reservation cap for issuers of qualified residential rental project bonds.
Senate Bill 2064 authorizes the board to establish and administer programs for the reservation, allocation, and carryforward designation of additional state ceiling in accordance with federal law and, on the last business day of the year, to assign as carryforward to state agencies any state ceiling that is not reserved or designated as carryforward and for which no application for carryforward is pending.
Senate Bill 2064 authorizes a federally designated state official or agency to designate bonds as entitled to a portion of a miscellaneous bond ceiling or to allocate a portion of such a ceiling to an issuer of bonds in accordance with the law establishing the federal subsidy for which the ceiling is established and to the extent consistent with the federal law as the official determines will achieve the subsidy's purpose under that federal law. The bill authorizes the board to administer programs established by the applicable official for the allocation of a miscellaneous bond ceiling or for the designation of bonds entitled to the federal subsidy limited by such a ceiling.
Senate Bill 2064 amends the conditions that allow consideration under the low income housing tax credit program of an otherwise ineligible applicant who proposes to replace in less than 15 years any private activity bond financing of the development described by the application. The bill validates all reservations, allocations, and carryforward designations by the board of additional state ceiling authorized by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, and by applicable officials of miscellaneous bond ceiling authorized by the Heartland Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2008 or by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, before the bill's effective date. An issuer that has carryforward available from additional state ceiling authorized by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 is not restricted by the statutory project limits for the state ceiling, and an issuer using the carryforward to issue qualified mortgage bonds or mortgage credit certificates is exempt from the utilization percentage calculation in determining the amount of the issuer's reservation request.