Middletown Maintains AAA Bond Rating: Mayor

MIDDLETOWN, CT — Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has assigned a AAA bond rating to Middletown for the seventh year in a row, Mayor Ben Florsheim announced Monday.

This is the “highest possible rating for a business or municipality, and reflects the strong and continuing confidence that the market has in the fiscal management and future economic potential of the city,” officials wrote in a news release.

Read more from the news release below:

Middletown has steadily increased its bond rating during recent years. In 2014, the city increased from an AA rating to an AA+ rating, which was considered a great achievement at that time. In 2016, Middletown was upgraded to the highest possible rating of AAA and has maintained that elite status for the past seven years.

This excellent rating is a reflection of the City of Middletown’s financial health and economic stability. In reference to Middletown, the Standard & Poor’s report (dated March 23, 2022) stated that “the city can maintain better credit characteristics than the nation in a stress scenario.”

The report went on to state that “Middletown has maintained, what we consider, strong operating results and consistent budget reserves over several fiscal years, supporting the rating. Proactive management and conservative budgeting underpin a history of, what we view as, strong budgetary performance and even stronger reserves.”

The report noted that the AAA rating reflects Standard & Poor’s opinion that Middletown has a very “strong local economy with direct access to a broad, diverse metropolitan statistical area; strong management with good financial-management policies and practices and a strong Institutional Framework; strong, stable operations resulting in very strong budgetary flexibility and liquidity; and manageable debt and fixed-cost liabilities.”

Florsheim said that “this high rating is a testament to the good work of the Middletown Common Council and the city’s excellent Finance Department, along with the strong efforts made by our administration to promote smart economic development and reduce the cost of living for residents. Together, we continue to make thoughtful investments and are careful stewards of taxpayer dollars, and year after year, our uniquely successful approach has yielded benefits for our economy and our residents.”