Warrenton Finance Director Meghan Waelder said the city plans to pay off a $15.4 million loan for the Highway MM overpass on Interstate 70 by spring of next year.
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Warrenton Finance Director Meghan Waelder announced at the Dec. 3 board of aldermen meeting that the city had made another payment on the loan for the Highway MM overpass on Interstate 70 and expected to pay the loan off entirely well before it was originally planned.
In December 2016, the city took out a $15.4 million loan to construct an overpass and highway interchange on Highway MM across Interstate 70.
Voters also passed two half-cent sales taxes the city has used to make payments on that loan, which was originally planned to be paid off over 20 years, according to Waelder.
In the eight years since, the city has made several lump sum payments with the sales tax funds to pay down the principal and now expects to pay off the loan completely in April of next year.
“All those payments helped save over $2 million in interest that we would have had to pay,” said Waelder. “So for sure by the second quarter (of 2025) to be on the safe side, but I have no reason to believe that we won’t be able to pay it off by March or April, which is incredible.”
With the accelerated payments on the loan, Waelder expects the city will see significant savings since they are avoiding a significant portion of the interest associated with the loan.
“The original loan had over $4 million in interest associated with that loan because of the length of it, and since we were able to pay it off in a fraction of that time that cut off a huge chunk of that interest that we would have incurred,” said Waelder.
She said the roughly $2 million in savings that the city expects to see would equal roughly 12% of the city’s annual revenue, freeing up a significant amount of funds for other projects.
Once the loan is paid off, one of the two half-cent sales taxes will sunset, and will no longer be assessed on purchases in the city, according to Waelder.
The other half of the sales tax will continue although Waelder was unsure where those funds would be allocated since the board has yet to make a decision on their use following the completion of payments on the loan.
