Ocean Springs Pays Off Lawsuit Debt to Psycamore Clinic

The City of Ocean Springs has paid off its $500,000 settlement in the discrimination lawsuit with Psycamore Mental Health Clinic.

The city was forced to pull $287,000 out of its reserve fund to pay the debt that was due at the end of next week. Ocean Springs had already paid $150,000 to Psycamore when the settlement was finalized in November. Now the city will look to take out a loan to replenish the reserve fund, which was recently cut in half, to save its AA bond rating.

Connie Moran, Mayor of Ocean Springs, says, “We want to maintain that good rating by replenishing our reserve fund and the way to do that is either to borrow it, pay if off over a short term period, low interest loan is about 1.8%, so it’s very lucrative, so we’re also looking at perhaps consolidating some of our smaller bank loans that we have, refinancing them at a lower interest rate.”

Mayor Moran says even if the bond rating is lowered, it will only increase the interest rates for future debt.