Rating agencies have lowered two of Hartford’s major bond ratings over concerns about the Capital City’s weak budget performance.
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services lowered its rating on Hartford’s general obligation (GO) bonds to ‘A+’ from ‘AA-‘, and also lowered its rating on the Hartford Stadium Authority’s lease revenue bonds to ‘A’ from ‘A+’.
“The downgrade is due to the city’s ongoing weak budgetary performance,” said Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Hilary Sutton in a statement. The negative outlook reflects significant budget gaps in the city’s long-term general fund projection. Both ratings could be lowered by multiple notches if the city fails to establish a credible plan to address these gaps, according to the rating agency.
At the same time, Standard & Poor’s assigned its ‘A+’ long-term rating to Hartford’s series 2016A GO refunding bonds and its ‘A’ rating to the Hartford Stadium Authority series 2016 lease revenue bonds.
Standard & Poor’s said lease revenue bond proceeds will fund the completion of Dunkin’ Donuts Stadium and related facilities, the payment of capitalized interest, and a deposit to the debt service reserve, while GO bond proceeds will refund certain maturities of GO bonds outstanding for level debt service savings and without an extension of final maturity.
