NEW YORK BOND RATINGS AGENCY GIVES “THUMBS UP” TO COUNTY’S FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
Wicomico County Executive Richard M. Pollitt, Jr., announced today that the county has received an upgrade from the prestigious bond ratings firm of Standard & Poor’s. “The county had previously been rated A+,” said Pollitt, “and just this week, S & P informed us that we are now rated at AA-. A rating upgrade is a substantial and rare accomplishment in these times of economic stress. It is particularly welcome today since we conduct our bond sale tomorrow. The upgrade could save Wicomico taxpayers considerable dollars in interest payments on capital projects.”
As the result of a voter referendum, the county switched to an executive form of government in December, 2006. Since that time, Executive Pollitt has emphasized a strong conservative approach in crafting his first two budgets. In response, the New York rating agencies have rewarded the county for its fiscal policies. Last year, the county received an outlook upgrade from “stable” to “positive” from Fitch Ratings.
“I am very pleased with the results of the ratings process,” continued Pollitt, “It is clear that the ratings agencies feel we are managing our financial affairs well. That is reflected in our rating upgrade this year and outlook upgrade last year. Accomplishing this in these trying economic times demonstrates that we are good stewards of the county’s fiscal resources and worthy of the trust that citizens have placed in the executive form of government.”
In announcing the upgrade, Standard & Poor’s cited the following strengths:
· “The county has proven its ability to maintain its solid financial position while increasing reserves through various economic, financial and governmental changes.
· “The county has a proven record of achieving continuous sound financial performances while growing reserves despite operating under a self-imposed property tax limitation and a recent charter revision.
· “The county is committed to its ongoing conservative management practices, coupled with well-adhered-to existing fiscal policies.”
County officials made presentations to the three major New York bond ratings agencies in October in anticipation of tomorrow’s $20,170,000 competitive bid bond sale.
5 comments:
Sounds like En-ron again doesnt it, you cant believe any of this crap.
Congratulations to Rick Pollick and all of county government personnel. This is a really good spot to be in. Good government practices work, in spite of the economy.
Loretta Williams
No doubt the Revenue Cap is to be given credit for this. Without the cap, the fiscal restraints would be 'unshackled' and thus would deteriorate our credit rating.
THANK YOU VOICE.
This is how acurate S&P is these days!
Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates. Criminals on Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with turds. Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade chocolates. These boxes were then sold all over the world to investors. Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime. Suddenly nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide.
Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market for turds returns to normal. Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the good chocolates are not being investigated, arrested or indicted.
Mama always said: 'Sniff the chocolates first, Forrest'.
> Quote of the day from a fund manager:
'This is worse than a divorce... I've lost half of my net worth and still have my wife!!'The bailout, a different perspective:
Back in 1990, the US Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for
tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed.
Now we are trusting the economy of our country to a pack of nit-wits who couldn't make money running a whore house and selling booze?
Isn't that the same firm that rated all those securities that failed and caussed the big bailout fiasco -- they must be crazy to upgrade this county.
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