FISHKILL – Moody’s Investor Service upgraded the Town of Fishkill’s bond rating from Baa3 to Baa1.
The rating change, announced on Wednesday, was due to “strong improvement to its financial position over the last year, including the elimination of a negative operating fund balance and improvement in liquidity.”
The Moody’s report noted the elimination of the town’s short-term borrowing to cover cash flow problems.
Supervisor Robert LaColla said the town was able to eliminate the $4.8 million general fund deficit that accumulated by the end of 2011, even though he realized some residents were initially concerned that the 2013 tax increase would not be properly applied to the budget.
The supervisor praised the town’s workforce for helping to operate a lean, yet effective local government.
“They have worked really hard to keep our costs down while they are improving our service levels. We have really only seen a three percent overall increase in spending since 2011 and that’s with quite an expansion in service and hours here – the town hall is open 40 hours a week where it was 35 before,” LaColla said. “We have replaced a lot of ancient equipment including police cars. It’s not that we are not taking business. It’s just that everybody is working really hard to make sure that we are keeping the cost contained as we do it.”
LaColla said the rating improvement will allow the town to refinance some debt in order to lower its operating costs.
