NISKAYUNA Moody’s lowers town rating as its cash reserves dwindle BY STEVEN COOK Gazette Reporter Reach Gazette reporter Steven Cook at 395-3122 or scook@dailygazette.com.
Lagging mortgage tax receipts and high storm damage costs have lowered town cash reserves and prompted a credit agency to downgrade the town of Niskayuna’s rating. Moody’s Investors Service officially announced the downgrade Thursday, moving the town from Aa2 down to Aa3. A spokesman for Moody’s called the new rating still fairly strong, still investment grade. Also, Moody’s outlook on the town’s finances was set at negative, meaning there is a risk of a further downgrade in the next year or two, the spokesman said. That comes amid concern that the town will not be able to replenish its reserves to previous levels, spokesman David Jacobson said. He added that Moody’s outlook on the entire state and municipal sector in negative. Such downgrades can result in higher interest paid on future borrowing, officials said, though Town Supervisor Joe Landry said that remains to be seen. It could have a nominal effect. He portrayed the downgrade as a minor adjustment, but one the town has had little say in. “Yes, the fund balance has decreased, but a lot of it is because of outstanding factors that I have no control over,” he said. The main areas of concern putting pressure on the town’s reserves, Moody’s wrote, are that mortgage tax receipts have come in less than budgeted, causing a gap that must be made up. Meanwhile, the town has had storm costs exceed estimates. The town was particularly hard hit by the December 2008 ice storm that felled trees. Town officials estimated 55,000 cubic yards of debris had to be removed town wide. The result was a reserve that started at $1.5 million in 2007, equal to about 12.7 percent of the revenue flowing into the town, then dropping to $936,000 in fiscal year 2010, or about 7.6 percent of the revenue stream, Jacobson said. For 2011, another $287,000 is expected to be siphoned from the reserve, Jacobson said. But the proposed 2012 budget, he noted, is slated to use zero reserves. .............................>>>>...................>>>>.......................................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01902&AppName=1
Well the way to AVOID it would be to make the cuts that FDG has laid out. Of course the democraps want to use the fund balance to add the spending back, and the citizenry has no idea what that means so they may get away with it. Next year we get a 20% increase. BUT there is no election next year so they can blame Bush or the Man on the Moon or someone!
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
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