More bad news for ISD 709. Moody’s has dropped its credit rating down another notch. Investments are rated by Moody’s from best to worst thusly: Aaa Aa A Baa Ba B Caa Ca C. According to Moody’s website, “Moody’s appends numerical modifiers 1, 2, and 3 to each generic rating classification from Aa through Caa.”
This then shows the gradations from the top to the bottom of the barrel with the numerical qualifiers: Aaa Aa1 Aa2 Aa3 A1 A2 A3 Baa1 Baa2 Baa3 Ba1 Ba2 Ba3 B1 B2 B3 Caa1 Caa2 Caa3 Ca C
That would mean that the District’s credit is still well above junk status at Baa2. I bolded that ranking above on the sliding scale. I do wonder how often Moody’s has dropped the credit rating since I was on the School Board. I recall that Supt. Mark Myles celebrated when our formerly bankrupt district achieved a double or triple A rating. My guess is that this is not the first drop since Dr. Dixon took over the District. Its only the first time the DNT has noted a downgrade.
I’ve suggested that the District should consider refinancing its bonds to make more money available to lower class sizes. I’m pretty sure this decreasing value placed on our bonds would make that option untenable.
As Bill Hanson, our Director of Business Services, says we don’t need to build anything new any time soon. Not after remodeling or rebuilding every school in sight. Someday, however, we will need to start spending some money to maintain all these nice new buildings. We sure won’t want to bond to do this if our credit keeps sinking. And there’s no need to as long as we can keep cramming more kids in classrooms.
