County impresses bond ratings houses, retains impressive Aaa status

Oakland County officially retains its Aaa bond rating from Moody's Investors Service one month after Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson and his budget team met with the bond ratings house. Moody's reaffirms the Aaa rating and stable outlook on the county's $317.4 million in outstanding general obligation limited tax debt, as well as the 2007 Oakland County Retiree Medical Benefits Funding Trust's Taxable Certificates of Participation, Series 2007. "The outlook... reflects our expectation that the county will continue to adhere to its historically strong budget and management practices, which have resulted in ample financial flexibility via the maintenance of healthy General Fund reserves," Moody's said. Patterson and his budget team presented Oakland County's best budgeting practices and economic development success stories to Moody's on Monday, March 5, and Standard and Poor's on Tuesday, March 6, including a balanced three-year rolling line-item budget with no budget cuts through 2015 and a budget surplus that far exceeds the guidelines of the Government Finance Officers Association. "One of the bond ratings analysts we met with in those two days told our team in his 20 years of doing his job, he has never seen a stronger triple-A county--that we are doing things states don't even do, and that we are doing things some countries don't even do," Patterson said. The Aaa bond rating is the best "credit score" county government can attain. It allows Oakland County to finance and refinance long term debt at the lowest market rates possible, saving taxpayers millions of dollars. Published: Tue, Apr 10, 2012