NEW YORK: Maintaining a strong bond rating encourages continued investment in the city’s bonds which help support funding to build and maintain infrastructure, said New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
He was referring to recent affirmations of the city’s bond ratings based upon strong fiscal management by four internationally-recognized, independent credit rating agencies — Moody’s Investors Service, S&P Global Ratings, Fitch Ratings, and Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA).
“Thanks to our proactive fiscal management, reductions in asylum seeker spending, and better-than-expected economic recovery, we have confronted our financial challenges and shown the world that New York City is back and open for business. While we must continue to responsibly manage our budget — and still need additional support from our partners at the state and federal level — today’s news is reason to take pride in our early decisions and make us cautiously optimistic about our financial future,” the mayor said.
Moody’s Investor Services was the first to reaffirm their assessment of the city’s bond rating last week, citing that their decision “reflects successful implementation of budget measures to help close budget gaps in the current and succeeding fiscal year primarily caused by the migrant crisis.” In its ratings report, S&P wrote “The stable outlook reflects our view of New York City’s relatively resilient economy, including its full recovery of jobs lost during the pandemic.
In addition, the city benefits from a global presence and diversified employment in technology, health care, financial services, and arts and entertainment. We believe the city’s commitment to build reserves to a level that exceeds the pre-pandemic amount on a sustained basis supports its credit fundamentals and helps position it to weather a shallower but more protracted national economic slowdown.”
Fitch Ratings cited the city’s exceptionally strong budget monitoring and controls, supporting Fitch’s high assessment of operating performance. The city experienced “strong recovery coming out of the pandemic, as well as improvement and reserve levels.”
KBRA wrote that the “city’s role as international business and cultural center commensurate with its status as the nation’s largest city, and position as the center of a large metropolitan economy” contributed to its rating assignment and went on to note that “institutionalized policies and procedures support financial stability.”
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