Preamble
This replacement to the U.S. Municipal Water and Sewer Revenue Bond Rating Methodology is intended to supersede the version originally published on June 17, 2016. Upon implementation of this U.S. Municipal Retail Utility Revenue Bond methodology, KBRA will retire the U.S. Municipal Water and Sewer Revenue Bond Rating Methodology. The replacement methodology creates a single methodology to address a wider variety of retail utilities, including specifically municipal electric utilities. Other modifications include:
- increased emphasis on the strength of management as a critical rating factor
- revision of the bankruptcy risk assessment
- updates to certain financial and operating metric benchmarks
- analytic revisions to the section of the methodology pertaining to the evaluation of the impact of a local government’s pension obligations on the utility’s operations, and
- certain clarifications and edits to improve readability.
KBRA…