Collingswood, N.J.'s general obligation bond rating is "back where it always should have been," its mayor said after Standard & Poor's assigned it AA-minus.
"I'm not attuned to the capital markets. Hopefully the reaction there is good. But locally, our rating is where it belongs. S&P got it right. Nobody believes the other stuff," James Maley said in an interview.
Two years ago, 14,000-population Collingswood received a six-notch "super downgrade" from Moody's Investors Service, which dropped the borough's general obligation rating to junk-grade Ba1 from investment-grade A1. Maley immediately went on the offensive, even airing a lengthy video on YouTube protesting the downgrade.
Moody's said at the time it expected the borough to struggle to pay debt it guaranteed to help finance the LumberYard condominium development. Collingswood in 2012 issued $5.1 million of one-year bond anticipation notes to purchase condos at LumberYard.
Collingswood has $33.5 million of debt outstanding, according to S&P.
The borough, which sits in Camden County, seven miles southeast of Philadelphia, dropped Moody's and contracted with S&P two weeks ago, according to Maley.
"S&P has a new app that's one of the most amazing things I've seen in public finance. All you have to do is plug the numbers in," said Maley.
