Connecticut has scheduled a $570 million general obligation bond sale next week.
According to state treasury officials, the two-day retail sale will begin Tuesday with the institutional sale on Thursday. Siebert Brandford Shank & Co. is lead manager.
The sale involves $500 million in new money, including $325 million of Series 2012E bonds and $175 million of Series D SIFMA index floating-rate notes, as well as $70 million of refunding bonds.
Floating-rate notes adjust weekly, based on a SIFMA index.
Officials would not say how much they expect to save through the refunding.
Series D proceeds will benefit various statewide capital projects, with Series E for level debt-service savings without extending maturities.
Connecticut’s full faith and credit pledge secures the bonds.
The new-money bonds are expected to mature by fiscal 2032.
Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings and Kroll Bond Rating Agency all rate the state double-A, while Moody’s Investors Service assigns an Aa3 rating. All assign stable outlooks.
All four ratings agencies cited Connecticut’s per capita income, the highest in the country at roughly $55,000, but also warned about the state’s high debt burden on a per capita basis and as a percentage of personal income, compared with other states.
According to Fitch, net tax-supported debt stands at $18.2 billion, or 8.9% of 2011 personal income. Fitch estimated that three-quarters of net tax-supported debt is GO, much of which benefits local school capital needs.
Connecticut also has a high liability level for pensions and other post-employment benefits, or OPEB.
Some changes occurred during last year’s union negotiations, and a new valuation incorporating the changes showed a slight improvement in the state employee retirement system funded ratio to 48%, up from the previous year’s 44%.
Moody’s, however, warned that if the state adopts the assumptions of a 2012 draft experience study, that ratio would rise to 46% as of June 30, 2011.
The teachers’ retirement system had a funded ratio of 61%, according to the most recent valuation.
Kroll, which began to rate Connecticut last March in its initial thrust into the municipal rating market, praised state officials for its ability and willingness to raise revenues and adjust expenditures, while warning that an economic recovery that runs more slowly than expected could affect revenue collection and threaten budget balance.
“Revenue base is volatile due to concentration in the financial services sector and progressive nature of the income tax structure,” Kroll said in a report.
Day Pitney LLP is lead bond counsel. Hawkins Delafield & Wood LLP and Robinson & Cole LLP are also advising on the deal.
