As many municipalities develop and execute financing plans for their capital projects, one of the most important steps is preparing for and undertaking the credit rating call. Regardless of a proposed borrowing’s size or scope, thoughtfully preparing for the rating call can reap both short- and long-term benefits for your community – most specifically your cost of and access to capital. There are several key considerations and best practices relative to rating call preparation which, when followed, go a long way in setting your municipality up for success!

The City of St. Francis had been in discussions over building a new City Hall for over 20 years, only to find it was never quite “the right time.”   Repeated investments of staff time, studies and community engagement had been lost in several attempts to find the right project for the right space. As a community of more than 8,000 residents that had grown by over 66% over the prior two decades, St. Francis found its existing City Hall space overly constrained when compared to today’s standards. This challenge was compounded by the need to replace a Fire Station that was originally built as a garage in 1965.

2025 kicked off with speculation and uncertainty about how the economy and market would respond to a new political landscape and prospective policy changes. Now entering the third month of the year, we’ve seen the markets begin to digest recent data releases suggesting some downside risks to the U.S. economy, along with additional uncertainty related to future policy changes across several fronts.