The City of Youngstown is lowering its outstanding debt through a program administered by the Ohio Treasurer's Office.

The Ohio Market Access Program (OMAP) helped Youngstown enter the market to refinance its debt and save nearly $42,000 in interest costs over the next year.

Youngstown used OMAP to issue a tax-exempt note and a taxable note to retire outstanding notes.

The original notes were given to finance renovations to the city hall annex building and part of the construction costs of the city's convention center.

Youngstown has participated in OMAP deals before. The previous six deals saved the city an estimated $341,000 in interest.

These OMAP deals are numbers seven and eight for the city.

"Like many municipalities across Ohio, the pandemic taught everyone many lessons on how to prepare for unexpected disasters," said Kyle Miasek, Director of Finance for the City of Youngstown. "We've worked to implement every possible strategy to maximize our resources, and OMAP helped provide the city with significant savings on our borrowing costs."