PRESS RELEASE

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

 

LAPORTE COUNTY OFFICIALS TOUT STANDARD & POOR’S “A+” RATING AS SIGN OF STRONG FINANCES AND SOLID MANAGEMENT

 

(LaPorte, IN)  The LaPorte County Commission President, LaPorte County Council President and LaPorte County Auditor jointly released today the Standard & Poor’s report that is being provided to prospective bond purchasers in advance of this Thursday’s expected sale of $19.5 million in bonds necessary to undertake the long-awaited upgrades to the Michigan City Courthouse.

 

Said Commission President Sheila Matias, “Our county team is proud to share that after the rigorous fiscal analysis that S&P put us through – basically putting us through the ringer and examining every aspect of our operations and financial health, LaPorte County was assigned this A+ rating.  This is a great position to be in as we approach this Thursday’s bond sale.”


Council President Randy Novak concurred saying that “the County Council has worked closely with the Commissioners and our Auditor to ensure that we have ample cash reserves to weather any storm, such as the pandemic we are now going through.  We’ve taken a pay-as-you-go strategy over the years meaning we’ve been prudent and careful in our spending and we’ve built strong reserves. It’s great to see the professionals on Wall Street recognize what a good credit risk we are.”


County Auditor Joie Winski echoed the views of the Council and Commission presidents saying, “This represents a great collaboration by my office working closely with our other elected officials.  I’m very pleased to have S&P tout our management and budgetary performance and they particularly cited our budgetary flexibility and strong liquidity. It is not easy to secure an A+ rating from S&P and this is the kind of scorecard we are pleased to report to our constituents about.”

 

County officials have been meeting regularly with financial advisors from Baker Tilly in advance of Thursday’s bond sale, as well as with bond counsel from the Indianapolis law firm of Ice Miller. 

 

Michigan City Courthouse renovations were made necessary by repeated electric system and other failures at the 100-year old structure and County Commission President Sheila Matias noted that “fortunately taxes will not have to be raised to pay for debt service on these bonds.  We have enough in savings to service annual bond payments and that’s another good piece of news we’re eager to share.”