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ODOT says $246M bond is a refinancing; warns years of debt will shrink bridge program capacity
Summary
ODOT officials told the Joint Interim Committee on Transportation Oversight that a $246 million highway user tax revenue bond sale is refinancing short‑term debt and estimated the agency could face roughly $65 million in additional annual debt service when several large projects are fully financed — likely reducing bridge replacements from about three per year to roughly one.
Travis Brower, deputy director for revenue and finance at the Oregon Department of Transportation, told a legislative oversight committee that a recently completed highway user tax revenue bond sale of about $246 million is not new spending but a refinancing of short‑term borrowing used on the I‑205 Abernathy Bridge.
"This is really just a refinancing of short term debt into long term debt," Brower said, adding the annual debt service on the $246 million sale will be about $17,600,000. He told lawmakers that highway user tax revenue bonds typically carry a rule‑of‑thumb debt service of roughly one‑fourteenth of proceeds.
The immediate sale is one of several financing steps ODOT…
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