ABSTRACT
By November of 2008, the nation quickly discovered that there can be a limit to the volume of credit our banking system can create for our economy. The Great Recession of 2008-09 showed that commercial banks and other investment institutions were reckless in their lending portfolios. Consequently, banks, investors and lending institutions became highly selective in extending their limited investment capital for public and private debt. Faced with limited resource opportunities, local governments must, therefore, become especially astute in identifying those capital projects that will contribute the greatest rate of return as a public investment to the community. Indeed, a failure to properly manage long-term investment policy choices for public facilities and acquisitions “can adversely impact the financial viability of the local government and current and future private sector business activities” (Gianakis and McCue, 1999, p. 124).
