Taylor is moving on up the economic ladder.
At the regular meeting July 27, city officials celebrated Standard & Poor Global’s recent credit rating upgrade from AA- to AA as they approved an ordinance for the city to issue combination tax and revenue Certificates of Obligation in the amount of $53 million over 30 years in order to build a new Municipal Complex.
“I want to commend council, Jeff Wood, the finance department, staff for the incredible job to get us into this position,” said Mayor Brandt Rydell. “It’s something to be really, really proud of.”
According to S&P Global, “credit ratings are forward-looking opinions about an issuer’s relative creditworthiness. The AA rating shows a very strong capacity to meet financial commitments,” officials
said. Consultant Jennifer Ritter, the managing director for Specialized Public Finance Inc., which handled the bids for the certificates of obligation, said that this improved rating came as a result of the city’s strong financial management practices and a rosy economic outlook for Taylor’s future.
“This was a little unexpected,” Ritter said at the meeting. “We work with a number of issuers and cities across the United States so this is the first upgrade that I have personally seen since COVID (19) for a while, so the entire municipal sector on a negative outlook so given what was happening in the economy, and they weren’t allowed to do upgrades, so its quite a feather in the cap for the city, and hopefully the citizens understand the importance of that.”
Ritter said because of this improved rating, the city can expect to save almost $1 million in the debt issuance due to a lower interest rate.
“It’s all hypothetical because we didn’t go out and bid a double a minus how much you may have hypothetically saved,” Ritter said.
Nonetheless, Ritter said the higher rating was something the city should be proud of.
“They highlighted your conservative budgeting, or not spending more than you think you may be bringing in, and they also talked about the fact that even though you are growing in terms of building permit fees and sales tax, you are using those for one-time expenditures,” Ritter said. “You are not building it into the budget to account for that money in the future.”
According to the city, the last time Taylor’s debt rating was upgraded to AA- was in December 2013.
After the meeting, Rydell took to social media to spread the news.
“The Taylor City Council and city staff have worked hard over the years to put Taylor in the strongest financial position possible,” wrote Mayor Brandt Rydell on his Facebook page. “Thanks to sound fiscal management and a forward-looking economic development posture, the city has been able to achieve an upgrade in its credit rating to AA from Standard & Poor ... We didn’t get here by ‘doing what we’ve always done.’ It took strong leadership by our council (sometimes involving tough votes) and a dedicated and professional staff executing on the council’s vision. Great job all around, and here’s to an even brighter future ahead for the City of Taylor.”
“ It’s quite a feather in the cap for the city, and hopefully the citizens understand the importance of that.”
-Jennifer Ritter, Managing Director for Specialized Public Finance Inc.
