Owosso schools' first bond sale: $12.65M cap, 6% rate ceiling

Owosso Public Schools is ready to borrow the first slice of the $37.9 million bond city voters approved on Aug. 4, and the board's Oct. 14 committee packet is where the fine print lives. The first series is capped at $12,650,000. The all-in interest rate cannot top 6.0%. The repayment term cannot run past 25 years. The underwriter's cut cannot exceed 0.75%, or $7.50 per $1,000 borrowed.

Those numbers come from Report 26-38, the single action item on an otherwise discussion-only agenda for the Committee of the Whole, which met at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14, in Conference Room 112 at the Washington Campus Administration Building, 645 Alger St. Administration recommended the board approve a resolution authorizing the issuance and sale of the 2026 School Building and Site Bonds, Series I, "in an amount not to exceed $12,650,000." Approval, the report says, lets the district work with PFM Financial Advisors and Thrun Law Firm to "move forward with the first bond sale and begin implementing the facility improvements approved by the Owosso community on August 4, 2026." The packet carries a blank motion-and-vote block, so it does not record what the board did with it; board minutes are kept at the principal office at 645 Alger St.

The Current reported in September, from the district's August packets, that the bond would be sold in roughly $12 million rounds and that the debt levy would stay at 4.7 mills. Report 26-38 confirms the Series I size and says the bonds will be "General Obligation – Unlimited Tax bonds, consistent with the authorization approved by voters." That kind of debt is repaid through the district's debt millage rather than out of the classroom budget. Proceeds go into a capital projects fund and may be spent only on eligible bond projects and issuance costs.

The report also records how the district settled on a sale method: at the Aug. 12 Committee of the Whole meeting, the board "reached consensus that a negotiated sale would be the preferred approach," which the report says gives the district more flexibility on timing and structure as market conditions change. The resolution hands the superintendent or a designee the authority to pick the underwriter, negotiate and sign the Bond Purchase Agreement inside those limits, appoint the paying agent and execute the closing documents. Two checks sit on that authority: the district must have an express written recommendation from PFM Financial Advisors before it accepts the purchase agreement, and it must satisfy all Michigan Department of Treasury requirements before issuing.

The rest of the Oct. 14 agenda is the part of district business that happens without a vote: a bond update, financial planning, a technology update, a future bus purchase, a 2026/27 health insurance update, review of data, curriculum updates, surveys and a round table. This packet includes no supporting documents for any of those nine items, so it does not say what the bus would cost, what the insurance rates are, or what data the board reviewed. The meeting closed with a session under attorney/client privilege, which the agenda does not describe further. A bus purchase and an audit report were later listed for a regular meeting at the Performing Arts Center, as The Current has reported.

What happens next: the board's next committee meeting is 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 11, in the Washington Campus Conference Room, and the next regular meeting is 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 18, at the Performing Arts Center.