Guilford County government has been vocal and proud of the fact that it has had, in recent years, a perfect AAA credit rating across all three major credit rating agencies but that rating could become less than perfect because one agency, Fitch Ratings, has revised the way it evaluates the credit strength of local governments and has therefore placed Guilford County “Under Criteria Observation.”
That state –Under Criteria Observation – is due to “the publication of new or revised criteria that is applicable to the rating, where the new or revised criteria has yet to be applied to the rating and where the criteria could result in a rating change when applied but the impact is not yet known.”
Since the county has a rare perfect credit rating, if a change is made the only way the credit score can move is down.
Over the last several years, Guilford County government, under Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Skip Alston and County Manager Mike Halford has been spending an astounding amount of money, growing county government at an alarming rate and the county has committed to billions of dollars in new debt. While that may ultimately catch up to the county’s excellent credit rating, this isn’t the reason that Fitch is reevaluating Guilford County’s credit rating. The company’s changes put about 550 ratings of governments and governmental bodies across the country Under Criteria Observation.
Guilford County still has to issue millions and millions in new school bond debt in the coming years, and the better the county’s credit rating, the less money the county will have to pay in interest.
Earlier this year, Fitch gave Guilford County government a AAA rating when the county issued $180 million in bonds to support Guilford County Schools’ construction and other large capital projects.
However, Fitch has now placed Guilford County – and other AAA-rated North Carolina municipalities and counties – in the Under Criteria Observation category following its revised local government rating criteria.
According to a statement a Guilford County spokesperson provided to the Rhino Times, “The ratings placed on Under Criteria Observation will require additional information and analysis to fully assess the effect of the criteria on the ratings. While these ratings may be affected by the criteria changes, not all of the ratings designated as Under Criteria Observation will necessarily be upgraded or downgraded. Placement on the Under Criteria Observation list does not indicate a change in the underlying credit profile, nor does it affect existing Rating Outlooks or Rating Watch statuses. Fitch will review all the ratings designated as UCO as soon as practicable.”
County staff is planning to update the Board of Commissioners on the results of the application of soon as those results are known.
When Fitch places a rating on Under Criteria Observations, that marks the start of a period during which the rating agency will look at the facts and apply the revised criteria to determine whether the new criteria will change the existing rating. The process usually takes a maximum of six months.
This will be a good story to follow.
with all this school funding guilford county should have the highest SAT scores, highest STEM scores lowest drop out rate and highest college acceptance in the state. Be interesting to know where guilford county ranks. do the teachers really need a pay raise if they are producing substandard students
As The Parasitic Sector leeches ever more money from The Productive Sector, so it becomes increasingly profligate and indifferent to how it manages that money.
When you control a coercive system of universal extortion, it’s easy money.
And as the saying goes, “Easy come, easy go”.
“Over the last several years, Guilford County government, under Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Skip Alston and County Manager Mike Halford has been spending an astounding amount of money, growing county government at an alarming rate and the county has committed to billions of dollars in new debt. ”
“Over the last several years…” people have been pointing this out but, as is par for the course, the ‘public servants’ have morphed into public overseers and have managed to make us into THEIR servants.
What I’m waiting for is the song and dance the Board is going to come up with to explain this this whole thing.
What needs to happen is term limits for the Board and replacement as soon as possible, otherwise the Skippy Show will continue for who knows how long. And the real question is can WE afford that?
“Jeopardy” is in re-runs. A suggestion is for the County to be in re-runs also. They would do less damage.
Oh, like we didnt see this coming! Any people who are aware of budget in a lifestyle or business should see the spending done by governments for what it is. Power mongering when previous “throwing good money after bad” syndrome has been shown to be ineffective. This group has done so for so long it just repeats and repeats and repeats. Inexcusable quite frankly, they are adults. It is a spiral as well, hellish to “pull out of”. Like any addiction.
Low debt and paying bills on time results in a good credit rating. Alston and Halford have been able to pay the county debt because of high property taxes. It is time for property taxpayers to say, “no more.” Tax money is being used to pay for DEI personnel and MWBE programs, which are discriminatory and should be banned by the state of NC. Money should not be given to nonprofits and especially the Woolworth museum. As taxpayers, we should not be forced to pay for a museum that cannot operate on its own merits without tax dollars forcibly taken from taxpayers. I do not know about anyone else, but for me, I am sick of all this civil rights talk.