Fitch Ratings assigned Washington County’s 2024 series of public improvement and refunding bonds an AA+ rating. The rating keeps borrowing costs low for capital projects and reflects the County’s sound fiscal policies, prudent long-range planning, and healthy economy.

In addition, Fitch has affirmed the County’s AA+ Issuer Default Rating (IDR) and the AA+ rating on outstanding GO bonds. The Rating Outlook is Stable.

On May 29, the County will sell $25.45 million in public improvement and refunding bonds via a competitive offering. Bond proceeds will finance improvement projects and refund the outstanding 2013 and 2014 public improvement bonds.

According to the Fitch Ratings analysis:

Washington County’s ‘AA+’ IDR and GO rating reflect its financial resilience assessment of ‘aaa’, which incorporates a high midrange level of budgetary control, and assumes maintenance of available reserves at approximately 20% of general fund spending. Other positive credit factors include the county’s strong liability burden (75th percentile of the Fitch local government rating portfolio) including fixed carrying costs metric for debt service and annual pension spending at 9.5% of governmental expenditures (84th percentile), each adjusted to reflect the current issuance.

Visit the Fitch Ratings website to read the complete analysis.