City of Arkansas City officials were notified Wednesday by S&P Global Ratings that the Ark City Public Building Commission’s refunding revenue bonds, Series 2019, estimated at $19.035 million, will be assigned a bond rating of “A,” with a stable outlook.
The Public Building Commission (PBC), which is composed of the five city commissioners and four other members of the public, is the entity that issued the debt service for South Central Kansas Medical Center’s new facility, which opened in March 2011 in the Patterson Park Subdivision.
The original $23.205 million in hospital financing was secured by an unconditional lease payment from the city, supported by its issuance of revenue bonds. SCKMC currently is responsible for making annual bond payments through its net revenues, with the aid of the one-cent Health Care Sales Tax.
This new A-stable rating for the refinancing of the original revenue bonds is essentially four steps better than when the original bonds were issued in 2009, when they were rated Baa3 by Moody’s Investor Service. More recently, Moody’s had rated those original bonds as B2, with a negative outlook — meaning A-stable would be a comparative improvement of nine steps for the 2019 bond refinancing.
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