The Oskaloosa City Council met this past Monday, and some of the topics have a resonating effect with community taxpayers.

The council authorized the sale of bonds that will be used to pay for the construction of the new fire station project, along with a new pumper truck. According to City Manager Michael Schrock, Jr., the sale of the bonds also allows the city to refinance existing debt to a lower interest rate and results in approximately $27,000 of savings to taxpayers.

As a part of the process, the city’s financial advisor spoke at the meeting about the city’s credit rating. This was done with Moody’s, and Oskaloosa scored an Aa3 in the long-term bond rating. This is attributed to good and active financial management by the city, and also is affected by the city’s ample reserves. According to Schrock, this high rating results in lowering borrowing costs for the city because Oskaloosa is seen as a good investment in the eyes of creditors. There were seven bids received for the bonds, and the sale came with an interest rate of 2.33{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b}. This is much lower than the city staff had expected, which again is very good news for the taxpayers in the city of Oskaloosa.

Also at this Monday’s meeting, there was the announcement of a public hearing set for September 8th. There are three projects that will be discussed at this meeting.

Among those is the sewer and storm water improvements for South L and M Streets as well as Penn Boulevard. The city is looking to simply replace old pipes with new ones.

The second item is the B Avenue East pavement rehabilitation project. The city will be doing a complete overhaul on B Avenue East, replacing the road with concrete and adding ADA compliant sidewalks and ramps. Also planned are curb and gutter repairs and storm and sanitary sewer improvements.

Finally, the city council will need to take action to approve a bid for constructing the fire station for the project that has already been approved by the council.

There will more information on 104.9 FM KBOE and on kboeradio.com regarding these issues as the meeting approaches.