BRADENTON, Fla. - Louisville, Ky. plans to competitively sell $50.4 million in unlimited general obligation bonds Wednesday with a new stable outlook from Moody's Investors Service.
Moody's rated the deal Aa1 and revised its outlook from negative saying that it expects the city's finances to remain balanced as improvements are made to stabilize reserves.
The Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government plans to competitively price $11.3 million of 20-year bonds for capital projects, $19.5 million in five-year notes for shorter life projects, and $19.3 million of GO refunding bonds.
The bonds are also rated AAA by Fitch Ratings and AA-plus by Standard & Poor's. Both have stable outlooks.
Moody's analyst Nathan Phelps said that after four consecutive years of operating deficits, 3% in revenue growth from improving economic conditions helped stabilize Louisville's general fund in fiscal 2013.
At year end, the available general fund balance improved to $73.1 million, or 12.1% of revenues. The unassigned balance was $60.9 million.
"Although Louisville Metro's available general fund balance relative to annual revenues remains below average for the rating category, realization of structurally balanced operations in fiscal 2013 is key to the outlook revision to stable," Phelps said.
"We expect continued revenue growth, and [that] management's explicit commitment to improve unassigned general fund reserves will yield stable financial operations in the near term," he added.
J.J.B. Hilliard, W.L. Lyons LLC is the city's financial advisor. Rubin & Hays is bond counsel.
