Omaha City Council OKs $333.4 million GOs for ballot
3 min readThe Omaha City Council last week approved placing a $333.4 million general obligation bond referendum on the Nov. 5 general election ballot.
The GO bond proceeds will go to sewer construction and improvements, streets and parking, public safety and convention center facilities, parks and recreation, highways and bridges, and police and firefighting equipment, as part of the city’s capital planning process for the next four to five years, Omaha Finance Director Stephen Curtiss said.
The city’s
According to a
The city’s planning department estimates that by 2040 Omaha will start running out of land to develop on its suburban outskirts, and by the mid-2050s, the city’s longstanding pattern of growth through annexation will slow to a crawl.
So Omaha must grow from within, the plan concludes, which depends on the revitalization and redevelopment of its urban center.
Omaha issued $94.5 million of
Early this year, the city issued $22.2 million of Series 2024A special tax revenue and refunding redevelopment bonds and $18.9 million of Series 2024B special tax revenue redevelopment bonds. The Omaha Public Facilities Corp. also issued $20 million of Series 2024A lease revenue bonds and $50 million of Series 2024B lease revenue bonds.
Moody’s assigned Aa2 ratings to those bonds. The outlook is stable. S&P assigned a rating of AA-plus with a stable outlook to the 2024 bonds.
“Omaha’s general credit characteristics reflect our view of the city’s function as a regional economic center supported by strong principal employers, a robust housing market, relative affordability and population growth, which together drive the expansion of the city’s major revenue streams, namely property and sales taxes,” S&P credit analyst Malcolm Simmons
Omaha’s total leverage surpasses 350% of revenue, with the associated fixed costs at around 20% of revenue — both “a relative weakness at the Aa2 rating,” the rating agency said in its report.
Still, Moody’s said, “the city will continue to benefit from the presence of long-standing institutions like Offutt Air Force Base, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Creighton University and several Fortune 500 companies. The city’s solid financial profile and growing revenue will continue to mitigate its higher leverage and fixed cost burdens.”