Moody's, S&P affirm Huntington's AAA rating

Two of the major credit rating agencies have maintained Huntington’s AAA rating.

Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Services ratings cover both existing debt and a planned $13.925 million bond issue scheduled for later this week.

In addition to maintaining the AAA rating, Moody’s revised the Town’s outlook to “stable.” In November the ratings agency declared the town’s ratings outlook as negative.

Moody’s said the stable outlook “reflects our expectation of continued sound financial operations and modest growth and overall stability in the local economy.”

Standard & Poor’s cited the Town’s “strong management, with good financial policies and practices.”

“We believe the Town has demonstrated sound monitoring, ability to adopt and adhere to formal policies, and forward-planning,” the rating firm noted in its report. “Town management tends to conservatively estimate both expenditures and revenues.”

The ratings extend to both the $13.925 million in borrowing scheduled for later this week and to the $109 million in outstanding debt.

Of the outstanding debt, $84 million represents town borrowing and $25 million is debt incurred by the water districts in the town; that debt is repaid only by district residents. The planned borrowing includes $12.4 million for town projects and $1.5 million for the Greenlawn Water District.

“We are gratified that Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have once again affirmed their support of Huntington’s fiscal policies by maintaining the AAA bond rating and either upholding or upgrading their outlook,” Huntington Supervisor Frank P. Petrone said.