Quincy’s Credit Rating gets a black eye

— News about Quincy from Quincy Quarry News.

Follow the money —- always follow the money
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Quincy’s credit rating gets a black eye.

Given today’s State of the City address by Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch, the Quarry’s City Editor tasked the Quarry Financial and Other Affairs Desk to look into the City of Quincy’s bond rating.

As it turned out, the Quarry’s finance desk team members were apparently focused on affairs that arose during Quincy Quarry’s social distance yearend party and so missed out that Standard & Poor slapped the City of Quincy with a negative outlook on its credit rating last December concurrent with a City of Quincy $38 million bond debt issuance.

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Granted, the negative outlook does not change Quincy’s official credit rating, a change from a neutral to a negative outlook does not bode well going forward, especially in light of fears of increasing interest rates given an expected increase in inflation as well as given Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch’s variously pending and proposed plans to issue roughly $700 million dollars in new city debt undertakings along with all but assuredly hundreds of millions more to follow.

As but one worrisome point of comparison, a projected billion dollars in City of Quincy outstanding debt would work out to an estimated at least five times greater amount of the city debt outstanding when Mayor Koch first came into office in a now looking to be unlucky thirteen years ago.

A City on the Move to Chapter Nine?
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Also note that while the COVID-19 pandemic has not helped, Mayor Koch has long before the pandemic been already running up the city’s outstanding debt as well as worsened the city’s fundamental structural deficit problems with the city’s annual budgets.

In short, Quincy property taxpayers and residents should consider buckling their seatbelts given the likelihood of years of bumpy rides care of local potholes as well as both higher property tax bills but painful cuts to local services provided in return.

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