The reason usually isn't only that the cash isn't on hand. The biggest one is matching the cost to the life of the thing. A road reconstruction, a fire truck, or a public building lasts 20–30 years. A bond spreads the bill across those years, so the people who use the asset over its whole life help pay for it, instead of asking one year's taxpayers to fund something the next decade of residents will also rely on. Planners call this “intergenerational equity”; in plainer terms, you pay for a 25-year bridge over closer to 25 years, not all at once.

Other reasons cities bond even when they could scrape the cash together:

• It avoids a tax spike. A small city's yearly levy can't absorb a $1M-plus lump in a single year without a painful one-time rate jump. Spreading the payments keeps the levy (and your bill) steady.
• It keeps a cushion. Draining the fund balance to pay cash leaves nothing for an emergency: a failed well, a bad storm, a lawsuit, a truck that dies mid-winter. Borrowing lets the city keep reserves intact for the surprise it can't schedule.
• It locks in today's price. Building or buying now beats saving for years while construction and equipment costs keep climbing.
• The interest can be relatively cheap. Most municipal bonds are exempt from federal income tax for the buyer, so cities often borrow at rates below an ordinary loan, sometimes below what safely parked reserves themselves earn. It is still a real cost, just a lower one.

The costs, honestly:

• You pay back more than you borrowed. Interest is the price of spreading the cost; the all-in price of the asset goes up.
• Issuance isn't free. Bond counsel, a financial advisor, the credit rating, and underwriting fees all come off the top.
• It ties future budgets' hands. Debt payments are locked in for years; a council a decade from now is still paying for today's decision.
• There are rules. State law caps how much a city can owe, and some bonds require a public referendum. Guardrails, but also hoops.

If the city already had the money, would bonding still make sense? Sometimes, yes. When the asset lasts decades, when paying cash would gut the reserves that cover emergencies, or when the tax-exempt borrowing rate is below what those reserves safely earn, bonding can be the more prudent move even with cash in the bank. But it is never free: every bond trades a higher total cost (the interest) for a smoother, fairer, lower-risk payment schedule. The honest summary: bonds aren't mainly about being broke; they're about matching how you pay to how long you'll use the thing, without betting the city's safety net on one big purchase.

This is general municipal-finance background, not advice about any one Nowthen bond. The actual terms, interest rate, purpose, and repayment of each issue are on the linked pages, taken from the city's audited financial statements.