County refinancing 2003 bond issue
Washington County’s bond rating has increased and taxpayers should be seeing almost $700,000 in savings on interest payments in the refinancing of its general obligation bonds.
A year ago, the county’s Standard & Poor’s bond rating was A+, or upper-medium grade. According to an Aug. 26 news release by Moses Mayo Kopmar, associate analyst with the public finance group of Moody’s Investors Services Inc. of San Francisco, the rating has been upgraded to Aa2, or high grade.
New tax-free municipal bonds were being sold at the same time as the Wednesday morning commissioners agenda meeting, and the three-member board was poised to finalize the transaction by enacting a bond ordinance at its 10 a.m. Thursday meeting, with a closing in early October.
The commissioners will be hearing from several finance professionals, including Washington attorney David DiCarlo, who is co-counsel for the bond issue.
Although interest rates plummeted from about 9 percent with the advent of the 2008 Great Recession, the two 2003 bond issues had a 10-year callback. Interest rates are now averaging about 2.6 percent to pay for borrowing related to the conversion of the old jail to the Family Court Center and other projects.
“The Aa2 rating reflects the county’s solid financial profile with healthy general fund reserves, ongoing expansion in the county’s tax base and economy supported by its location atop the Marcellus Shale and deeper Utica Shale natural gas deposits and a manageable debt position,” according to Moody’s. Challenges to maintaining its financial stability include “ensuring enterprise funds remain self-supporting, management of employee salary and retirement costs and a court-mandated (real estate) reassessment to consume $7 million of county funds.”
The county’s most recent bond issue includes $3 million worth of new borrowing for equipment at the county airport, repairs to the Justice Center non-public parking garage near the county jail, restoration of the courthouse and the purchase of $1.3 million in software upgrades for the county property tax revenue department.