Moody's Withdraws Rating on Tehachapi Health GOs

emergency-room-foto-357.jpg
sign at the hospital points towards the emergency room entrance.

LOS ANGELES — Moody's Investors Service on withdrew Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District, Calif.'s general obligation bond rating Aug. 19, citing a lack of financial information for fiscal 2013 and affecting $63 million in debt.

Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District runs a 25-bed general medical and surgical hospital in Tehachapi.

The healthcare district sold $50 million in GO bonds on May 30, 2013 to fund the $86 million construction of a new hospital in Capital Hills that broke ground in March 2013. Moody's had assigned an A2 rating to those bonds at the time of issuance. Standard & Poor's rated the bonds AA.

The replacement hospital, slated for completion in 2016, is being constructed because the current hospital did not meet California earthquake safety and the "community has outgrown the hospital's ability to serve their medical needs," according to the offering documents posted on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's EMMA website.

The healthcare district serves needs of the people of southeast Kern County from Cache Creek to Keene and encompasses a geographic area of 535 square miles.

In addition to the hospital the district runs rural health clinics in Tehachapi, California City and Mojave. The district has an estimated population of 37,000 people.

The rating agency withdrew the rating on the healthcare district's Series 2013, 2012A, 2009, 2006B, and 2004A general obligation bonds due to insufficient information, specifically in the form of the fiscal year 2013 or any unaudited actuals, according to the report.

Moody's said it withdrew the rating "because it believes it has insufficient or otherwise inadequate information to support the maintenance of the rating."

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