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General Obligation Medians For Municipalities: December 2023

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General Obligation Medians For Municipalities: December 2023

S&P Global Ratings derives the general obligation (GO) municipal medians from rating reviews completed under its GO criteria, "Local Government GO Ratings Methodology And Assumptions", published Sept. 12, 2013. The medians include the 3,952 municipalities that we rated as of December 2023, presented by rating category.

These medians do not pertain to counties and special districts such as school districts. We are publishing separate GO county and school district median reports concurrently with this article.

We calculate the metrics, for which we provide the medians, based on raw data, or in some cases, data that we have adjusted (for more information, see "S&P Public Finance Local GO Criteria: How We Adjust Data For Analytic Consistency," published Sept. 12, 2013), and they are only one component of the rating analysis. The metrics play a part in the quantitative analysis in five factors: economy, budgetary flexibility, budgetary performance, liquidity, and debt and contingent liabilities. Qualitative adjustments within each factor (which the medians do not reflect) also play an important part in the analysis.

Table 1

U.S. municipalities--medians
Rating
AAA AA+ AA AA- A+ A A- BBB+ or lower
Projected per capita EBI (%) 163.6 125.6 103.5 87.0 77.3 72.6 70.6 74.2
Market value per capita ($) 230,233 162,377 122,157 87,063 66,354 53,602 48,002 58,085
Available general fund (%) 41.4 44.1 46.9 55.0 51.0 40.5 29.0 17.3
General fund performance (%) 3.3 3.7 3.7 4.2 3.8 3.2 4.0 4.4
Cash to expenditures (%) 86.6 91.4 95.0 102.7 101.0 94.3 88.0 62.3
Cash to debt service (%) 1,206.3 1,383.0 1,111.3 1,290.8 1,113.8 1,085.5 866.7 576.1
Net direct debt to TGF revenues (%) 70.5 67.7 88.5 93.8 108.5 121.8 117.4 103.4
Carrying charge (%) 6.3 6.1 7.7 7.5 8.6 8.0 8.2 8.9
EBI--Effective buying income. ARC--Annual required contribution. OPEB--Other postemployment benefits.

Table 2

U.S. municipalities--Financial Management Assessment
Rating
Score (%) AAA AA+ AA AA- A+ A A- BBB+ or lower
Strong 52 23 11 3 0 0 0 0
Good 42 51 48 34 21 6 5 6
Standard 6 26 41 63 78 88 69 48
Vulnerable 0 0 0 0 0 6 26 45

Table 3

U.S. municipalities--rating distribution
Rating
AAA AA+ AA AA- A+ A A- BBB+ BBB BBB- BB+ BB BB-
Total (%) 12.2 17.1 21.5 21.5 15.9 7.1 2.1 1.0 0.7 0.5 0.2 0.1 0.0

Chart 3

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Median Definitions

  • Projected per capita EBI: Projection of per capita after-tax income measured as a percent of that of the U.S.
  • Market value per capita: Total value of taxable property within the jurisdiction divided by population.
  • Available general fund: All reserves available for operations as a percent of general fund expenditures.
  • General fund performance: Fiscal year-end general fund net operating results as a percent of general fund expenditures.
  • Cash to expenditures: Total government available cash as a percent of total governmental funds (TGFs) expenditures
  • Cash to debt service: Total government available cash as a percent of TGFs debt service.
  • Net direct debt to TGFs revenues: Net direct debt as a percent of TGFs revenue.
  • Carrying charge: Total governmental funds debt service as a percent of TGFs expenditures.

This report does not constitute a rating action.

Primary Credit Analysts:Daniel Golliday, Dallas 214-505-7552;
daniel.golliday@spglobal.com
Jane H Ridley, Englewood + 1 (303) 721 4487;
jane.ridley@spglobal.com
Secondary Contact:Diana Cooke, Chicago +1 3122337052;
diana.cooke@spglobal.com
Research Assistant:Amisha Rathore, Pune

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