Moody’s Investors Services has maintained the town’s Aa2 rating on $160.9 million of outstanding debt and has assigned the same rating to $30 million in GO bonds.
Moody’s has also assigned a MIG1 (Municipal Investment Grade 1) rating on $676,622 in township short-term bonds and notes.
The company's Aa2 rating is assigned to obligors who are "judged to be of high quality and are subject to very low credit risk."
It is their third highest rating on long-term debt. The MIG1 rating is the highest rating of short-term municipal debt.
In a rating document, the company cited "demonstrated success in cutting expenses" as a financial strength.
The company's workforce is down significantly over a decade ago, and the current township council has proposed in town.
Officials say the positive ratings will help increase market access when issuing bonds and notes and will lead to lowered borrowing costs.
"Just like a citizen who gets lower APR on credit cards for their strong credit rating, the township will get lower borrowing costs when we need to issue bonds and notes for projects and operations," said Business Administrator Scott Pezarras, in an e-mail.
In a statement, Mayor Stephen C. Acropolis say the ratings "show the continued financial strength of the municipal government."
“Moody’s recognizes the steps we have taken to cut expenses and acknowledges they are working," said Acropolis. "These include reducing the size of the workforce, negotiating labor agreements that are more affordable for taxpayers and creating revenue streams."
"They don’t concern themselves with headlines or what is being said in online forums," Acropolis said. "They concern themselves with the facts and the finances. They look at us through the eyes of investors and these ratings show that they think we are doing a good job."
Upcoming capital projects for which the township is expcted to issue bonds or notes include the switch to automated recycling collection, regular road improvements and bulkhead improvements.
Under state law, municipalities may not borrow the support their operating budgets.
160 million in debt.... for a 85million budget... Total debt was about 110million a few years ago!!!
They have a higher rating because of lower total debt.
We owe 160 million dollars and that is a good thing? We should have zero debt. STOP SPENDING!!! This country is going to implode from the trillions of dollars in debt we owe on the local/state/federal level. I hope everyone is ready for a 50% tax rate within ten years.
15 million when we got into the boating business and opened a Marina/Park 8 million when we went into the real estate business bought a Foodtown supermarket 34 million dollars when we got into the energy business and decided to build a solar farm Thank god we didn't get into the Hockey/Ice Rink business because that would have been another 10 million dollars. 1 million dollars a year for friends/family jobs for all of these schemes to be run. Jobs most likely given out to the most ineptly qualified people who couldn't get a job on their own and had to lean on a relative to get a handout job. Please just legislate and stop trying to come up with moneymaking schemes for us. Private businesses do that just fine. Thanks.
I wouldn't say Zero debt... But the total debt should not exceed the total budget number.... So, Brick total debt should be at about $85million Now, the solar project is a pass through... hopefully they have started recieving payments from the solar company... But, Brick is still has about 40million debt it has to unload!!! Stop capital project unless they are paid for out of the operating budget... in other words, stop getting loans.... for anything. It will take about 5 years to whittle the debt down if you stop taking out anymore loans... whittle down to 85million + solar... or about 120million total debt.
This is why we are broke