Atlantic City, N.J. remains on Standard & Poor's credit watch negative.
The watch remains, the rating agency said Friday, pending a resolution of Gov. Chris Christie's conditional vetoes of a rescue package approved by the legislature last June.
Christie announced on Nov. 9 he wanted changes to bills that would have established a payments-in-lieu of taxes program for casinos over a 15-year period and reallocated the state's casino alternative tax to pay debt service on Atlantic City-issued municipal bonds.
S&P analysts Timothy Little and Lisa R. Schroeer said that the state, in their view, has until the end of the current legislative session to resolve the conditional vetoes and release a long-term plan for the South Jersey city.
The session is scheduled to end Jan. 12.
S&P slashed the gambling hub three notches to B in August because of uncertainty over whether it could meet its near-term fiscal obligations.
"Atlantic City's ability to address its structural imbalance and long-term liabilities has been a significant concern that weighs on its fiscal future," Little and Schroeer wrote Dec. 18. "The decision to conditionally veto several bills intended to stabilize the city's revenues continues to leave the city's finances in a vulnerable and tenuous position."
Atlantic City faced a $101 million budget gap before adopting a 2015 fiscal plan in late September that relied partly on anticipated revenues of $33.5 million in redirected casino taxes included in the rescue package.
Christie appointed corporate restructuring attorney Kevin Lavin as Atlantic City's emergency manager in January, but he has not released any new updates since a March 23 report urged "shared sacrifice" among stakeholders including the possibility of extending maturities for bondholders. The city is also in the midst of negotiations with the Borgata Casino over $153 million in tax refunds owed.
