{"id":4449,"date":"2012-07-31T10:17:22","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T14:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=4449"},"modified":"2012-07-31T10:17:51","modified_gmt":"2012-07-31T14:17:51","slug":"county-gets-boost-from-bond-rating-giants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=4449","title":{"rendered":"County gets boost from bond-rating giants"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maintaining its AAA status will translate into lower borrowing costs<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Kathleen Brady Shea<\/strong>,\u00a0Managing Editor, The Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Barry Seymour (left), executive director of DVRPC, congratulates Chester County Commissioners’ Chairman Terence Farrell on his election to the DVRPC chairmanship.<\/p><\/div>\n

The three major bond-rating firms reaffirmed\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Chester County’s AAA status – an assessment deemed more difficult to attain during an economic downturn – the commissioners announced this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is great news for\u00a0Chester\u00a0County,\u201d Commissioners\u2019 Chairman \u00a0Terence Farrell said of the rating from Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service.\u00a0\u201cBy retaining our AAA ratings from the three top bond-rating agencies, our school districts and municipal governments will also benefit. The reaffirmed approvals keep Chester\u00a0County\u00a0in a select group of counties in the nation that have been awarded AAA ratings.”<\/p>\n

News of the reaffirmed ratings, which generates a lower interest rate for county borrowing, comes at a time when the county is issuing general obligation bonds, the primary purpose of which is to borrow funds for capital projects within the Department of Emergency Services \u2013 notably the purchase of radio and other communications equipment.<\/p>\n

In other news this past week from the commissioners’ office,\u00a0Farrell was \u00a0elected chairman of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC).\u00a0Established in 1965, the DVRPC focuses on \u00a0coordinated planning for the orderly growth and development of an area including the five-county Philadelphia region and\u00a0Burlington,\u00a0Camden,\u00a0Gloucester\u00a0and Mercer counties in southern New Jersey.<\/p>\n

The commissioners also voted to renew a contract with\u00a0Premier Healthcare Resources, a King of Prussia firm that prepared a strategic plan and financial analysis of the Pocopson Home, the county’s long-term, health-care center in Pocopson Township. The plan, which was hotly debated at three public meetings, \u00a0outlined several options for reversing skyrocketing costs. Two of the options, selling or leasing the 275-bed facility, generated significant public opposition.<\/p>\n

The commissioners indicated that Premier would be asked to garner more specifics on some suggestions it made for revenue enhancement, such as setting up a dialysis center. It would also produce guidelines and associated costs for converting the home to a nonprofit 501c3, an option that did not spur an outcry.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maintaining its AAA status will translate into lower borrowing costs By Kathleen Brady Shea,\u00a0Managing Editor, The Times The three major bond-rating firms reaffirmed\u00a0\u00a0Chester County’s AAA status – an assessment deemed more difficult to attain during an economic downturn – the commissioners announced this week. \u201cThis is great news for\u00a0Chester\u00a0County,\u201d Commissioners\u2019 Chairman \u00a0Terence Farrell said of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[15,955,956,609,954,754],"class_list":["post-4449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-chester-county","tag-fitch-ratings","tag-moodys-investors-service","tag-pocopson-home","tag-standard-poors","tag-terence-farrell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}