Oshkosh Area School District votes to borrow additional money to cover operations costs

OSHKOSH, Wis. (WBAY) - The Oshkosh Area School District voted on Wednesday night to borrow no more than $5 million to cover immediate operations costs.

This will be in addition to the borrowed $10 million the school board approved back in August.

The district says that this should not be alarming for taxpayers.

It is common practice for districts or municipalities to do short-term borrowing. Administrators say they just did not borrow enough back in August.

Superintendent Bryan Davis says this was a lesson learned to create a greater buffer when they do this in the future.

The district is behind on payments because of the late approval of the DPI grant funding. Administrators also cited higher-than-expected health claims over the summer as a reason for additional borrowing.

The borrowing will hold a 7.5% interest rate, just like their August borrowing, which will cost the district around $94,000, but Superintendent Davis says that amount is accounted for financially because of their new method of short-term borrowing.

“It has been a decrease for us of about $200,000 in the interest payments that were paid between the previous process and the current process that we use, so it’s been a decrease, but it’s something we continue to monitor,” says Davis.

The short-term borrowing from both August and Wednesday night is expected to be fully paid off when the district receives its January tax allocations.