S&P and Moody’s affirm City of Kirkland’s AAA credit rating
Published on June 19, 2020
Media Contact:
Kellie Stickney
Communications Program Manager
kstickney@kirklandwa.gov
(425) 979-6562
KIRKLAND, Wash. – The City of Kirkland has once again received a AAA credit rating from S&P and Moody’s credit rating agencies.
Bond ratings indicate the credit quality of the bonds being issued. AAA and Aaa are the highest quality and grade, indicating maximum safety. The rating indicates bonds with the smallest degree of investment risk and demonstrates that the obligor has an extremely strong capacity to meet its financial commitments. The City of Kirkland has held the Aaa rating from Moody’s since November 13, 2018, and the AAA rating from S&P since November 24, 2008.
“These ratings reflect the City’s continued commitment to being a responsible steward of public funds,” said Mayor Penny Sweet. “Our continued emphasis on financial sustainability will help ensure that not only do we survive the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ll be able to recover more quickly and return to being an economically thriving community.”
In their rating report, S&P had the following to say about the City of Kirkland, “We view the city as showing very strong budgetary performance, with positive general fund and total governmental fund results in the past three audited years. Although the city will wrestle with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and recession on revenue and operations, we believe that the city's policies and practices have positioned it well to navigate what is likely to be near-term budgetary stress. The city has maintained a trend of very strong available reserves that we believe it will sustain, despite a challenging revenue environment.”
Moody’s made similar positive statements in their report, “The AAA issuer and GOLT ratings are driven by the city's strong financial management that has led to healthy reserves that will protect the city against expected revenue declines in the near term. Also considered were the city's modest debt burden and manageable pension liabilities. We regard the coronavirus outbreak as a social risk under our ESG framework, given the substantial implications for public health and safety. Despite being one of the first places to experience an outbreak in the United States, the City of Kirkland has put itself in a great position to absorb the negative impacts of the outbreak and government response. The stable outlook reflects our expectation that the city will maintain its strong financial profile despite the projected revenue declines from the coronavirus pandemic. The stable outlook also reflects our anticipation that after some near-term slowing that the city's local economy will return to growth in the long-run.”
More information on the City’s finances is available on the City website.