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Mayor Miro Weinberger Responds to Moody's Investors Service Rating

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 15, 2013
Contact:  Mike Kanarick
                802.735.7962

Mayor Miro Weinberger Responds to Moody’s Investors Service Rating

Moody’s Investors Service issued its first rating of the City of Burlington since its three-step downgrade of the City’s bonds last June.  While the City’s credit rating remained unchanged, the Moody’s report (attached) confirmed that the City’s support of a Fiscal Stability Bond and improvements in the financial management of its enterprise funds will have a positive impact on future evaluations once these efforts are fully implemented and sustained, stating:

“The current $9 million [Fiscal Stability Bond] issue will further reduce the city’s reliance on TANs [tax anticipation notes]….  The city’s ability to continue to improve its cash position while reducing its reliance on short-term and deficit borrowing will be a key factor in future rating reviews.

“The General Fund operating surplus, focus on repayment of advances and the use of deficit financing notes will help to stabilize the negative fund balance position at the end of 2013. The city’s ability to maintain structurally balanced operations and produce a positive trend of operating surpluses to eliminate the negative unassigned fund balance is an important factor in overall credit quality.”

[Bracketed text added for clarity.] 
 

Mayor Miro Weinberger issued the following statement in response to the Moody’s report:

“Moody’s analysis confirms that the vigorous steps taken by the Administration, City Council, and public to dramatically reduce our reliance on short-term borrowing and strengthen the City’s enterprise funds have put us on the right path and will lead to an improvement in the City’s financial position once the steps are given time to work and their results are audited.

“Moody’s rating also reinforces the need for financial responsibility to remain the City’s top priority.  As I emphasized in my recent State of the City Address, challenges that have built over a decade will take longer than one year to fix, and we have more hard work ahead of us.”

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Press Release Date: 
04/15/2013
City Department: 
Mayor's Office