City Receives 13th Consecutive AAA Rating from Standard & Poor’s

For the 13th consecutive year, Standard and Poor’s (S&P) Global Ratings has reaffirmed the City of Portsmouth’s AAA bond rating, which measures the City’s ability to manage its credit. S&P cited its opinion of “Portsmouth's very strong management and economic profile, which it thinks will likely continue to support positive financial operations, resulting in the continued maintenance of high reserves.”

In making the announcement, City Manager Karen Conard said, “The City of Portsmouth has sustained a AAA rating – the highest achievable – since 2013, despite the economic challenges experienced during that time in the US economy at large. The City continues to ‘outperform the sovereignty’ meaning we have managed better than the national economy, in the opinion of S&P. In their estimation, Portsmouth continues to hold a strong reputation for investment by those who subscribe to the bonds by which the City funds its major capital improvements. Once again, the S&P AAA bond rating will allow the City to save taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars because we can procure the lowest allowable interest rate. This will also enable us to move forward with the capital investments as planned.” 

In awarding the AAA rating, S&P commented that the rating reflects “our view of the city’s robust and diverse local economy...the city’s reserves remain very high and we understand there are no plans to reduce them...robust and comprehensive financial management policies and practices that include long-term financial planning, a formal six-year capital improvement plan, and formal debt management and reserve policies...the city’s comprehensive planning and budgeting practices, coupled with a strong tax base and financial flexibility, continues to make this debt manageable and affordable for the city.” 

Explaining why the City’s AAA bond rating is higher than that of the nation, S&P’s analysts said, “We think the city can maintain better credit characteristics than the nation in a stress scenario” given that “the city has a predominately locally derived revenue source that supports our view that debt repayments are at limited risk of negative [national] intervention.”