OMC board approves option to push deadline

Published 11:00 am Wednesday, July 29, 2026

PORT ANGELES — The Olympic Medical Center Board of Commissioners on Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution that will give the hospital district the option of pushing back the deadline on $40 million in bonds — giving it more time to pay off the debt and reducing the amount of cash it must keep on hand.

OMC owes on two $20 million bonds, one from 2013 and one from 2016, both due Dec. 1, each of which requires it to keep a minimum of 60 days of cash on hand.

The resolution allows OMC to ask its lenders to push the due date to as late as June 1, 2027, with a possible additional year beyond that, in exchange for a higher interest rate of up to 7 percent. The 2013 bond is held by Truist Bank and the 2016 bond by Key Government Finance, an affiliate of KeyBank.

The hospital’s days of cash on hand has steadily declined from 95 in the second quarter of 2022 to 28 in April.

The resolution was originally presented to the board a few hours before its July 15 meeting, with a push to approve it quickly because of a July 31 deadline — the last day the district could act to preserve the option. Under the bonds’ terms, a request to change the tender date had to be made at least 120 days before the Dec. 1 due date.

Some commissioners objected to voting, saying they needed more time to properly review the resolution.

Because the board’s next regular business meeting was not until Aug. 5, a special meeting was set for Monday at 4 p.m.

That meeting was moved to Wednesday after commissioners determined that holding it Monday might violate the state’s Open Public Meetings Act because the agenda had not been posted on OMC’s website or at the hospital entrance at least 24 hours in advance.

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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com