General Government Debt Model Process Services

The Vendor is required to provide general government model process debt management for primarily tax-supported capital improvements providing modeling, debt capacity tracking, analysis, projections, stress testing, and innovative solutions based on related services.
- Requirement:
• Support the city’s treasury department in developing, maintaining and managing a customized general government financial planning model process.
• This model will incorporate the city’s tax-supported general government debt, such as limited and general obligation bonds, and will not cover the scope for enterprise debt.
• The financial model shall include the following:
o Separate model components for tax-exempt versus taxable debt, and calculations to incorporate the various financing structures or financing alternatives that the city may leverage.
o The city’s multi-year capital improvement plan and project borrowing needs based on capital spending projections, the city’s steady-state long-term financial plan, repayment obligations and long-term financial impacts.
o Operating and financial assumptions including various annual resources and uses, revenue growth rates, dynamic interest rate modeling, integrated bond elements for proceeds, premiums, refunding savings, and debt service expenditures per the city’s debt portfolio and assumptions, inputs for one-time revenues and expenses, and financial statement preforms.
o Debt affordability and debt capacity analysis based on city requirements, determining the maximum debt amount based on constraints like the minimum debt service coverage ratio, fund balance requirements, etc.
o A method to incorporate interpretive credit rating scorecards and stress testing
o Flexibility options with scenario modeling for cash flows, future debt issuances and repayment schedules.
o A logical structure that is designed and built to avoid overly complex, multi-tabbed spreadsheets in favor of consolidated calculation sheets.
o Clearly recognized areas for inputs, calculations, and output summaries (dashboards). Also provide planned spacing for city-managed notes that would not be password protected in the cells
o Error checking that implements automatic checks for integrity.
o Different elements to ensure the model can handle various debt instruments (fixed rate bonds, bond anticipation notes, short-term and long-term bank loans) and repayment structures.
o Flexibility with the ability to adapt to market changes without extensive redevelopment.
o Compliance with legal, policy, and interpretive credit rating considerations.
• Evaluate the most effective and efficient means to extract and obtain data for the model inputs, including direct access to vendor-supported cloud platforms like debt-book, or through data downloads initiated by city staff from the current ERP system.
• Plan and schedule at least three formal virtual meetings annually to go over model updates with budget, actual, and assumption changes to support the city’s annual budgeting, capital planning and debt capacity analysis processes.
• Meetings will be held with appropriate city staff, including the CFO, treasury team, and may include internal or external partners as relevant to the discussions.
• Consult with city treasury staff, financial advisors, bond counsel, bond underwriters and trustees as directed by city staff.
• Recommendations at the city’s request concerning means of incorporating a new debt or capital planning structure into the model as discussions and decisions arise.
• Keep the city appraised of any rate assumption changes based on market and peer trends that may occur during the term of the contract, which will be evaluated for possible changes to the model.
• Support of referendum preparation and implementation as it pertains to the use of the financial planning model if needed and requested.
• Any other related services as directed by the city, including consulting related to the model process, data analysis, or inquiries including but not limited to process improvements and industry best practices.