COUNTYWIDE : County Again Gets Highest Possible Rating for Bonds

Despite the state’s fiscal uncertainty, Ventura County has been able to renew its top rating for a short-term loan for the 1992-93 fiscal year, assistant county auditor Tom Mahon said Monday.

A group of county officials learned of the SP1+ rating, the highest possible for local governments in California, a month after returning from a trip to two New York bond-rating agencies. The rating controls how much the note will cost the county.

County officials decided to borrow $95 million for the 1992-93 fiscal year, which starts July 1, to pay bills during the year and then to repay the loan at the year’s end.

Officials chose to increase the loan amount from this year’s $50 million because no one can anticipate the severity of state budget cuts, Mahon said.

“We’re worried as to what can come out of them and we haven’t got any assurances,” Mahon said, adding that incoming revenues are also expected to be even more irregular.

Given the state’s budget woes, County Supervisor Vicky Howard said that she was pleasantly relieved to learn of the renewed rating from Standard & Poor’s.

“I was pleased, let me tell you, because I was really concerned with the state of the state budget, that it would reflect negatively on a California county,” Howard said.

Howard attributed the rating to several rounds of local budget cuts and the county’s fiscally conservative reputation.

“We really worked hard this last year to put the county in as sound financial shape as it is,” she said.

County Administrator Richard Wittenberg said the county plans to go back to the New York agencies in six months to obtain a re-evaluation of its long-term bond rating, which now stands at A+.

The county plans to borrow $19 million, with $12 million earmarked for construction of the new $53-million jail, $5 million for a new parking garage at the Ventura County Medical Center, and $2 million for a new coroner’s office, he said.