The City of Cottage Grove has been awarded a AAA bond rating, which was announced at the April 11 Economic Development Authority (EDA) meeting. This conveys an elite tier of credit status to the …
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The City of Cottage Grove has been awarded a AAA bond rating, which was announced at the April 11 Economic Development Authority (EDA) meeting. This conveys an elite tier of credit status to the city, earned by many years of fiscal responsibility.
City Councilmember and EDA Vice President Steve Dennis made the announcement, stating that it is a “monumental accomplishment” for the city. He asked Cottage Grove’s Finance Director Brenda Malinowski to elaborate on the designation.
Malinowski said, “What this means for our community is that we are one of a few communities in Minnesota that hold a AAA bond rating. What that says to our bond-holders, and to our residents and businesses, is that we do a great job with our finances and our financial planning. So, in the future when we go out and issue bonds for the community, we will do that at a lower interest rate,” saving local taxpayers money going forward.
“That’s a huge thing for us,” said Dennis. “If you think how interest rates have risen, and additional cost factors across the board, for us to be able to achieve this and have a higher level of value is really an amazing thing. This is something that is usually relegated for far larger cities than ours, so I think it speaks very clearly to the job that everybody has done at the council and our staff team to manage a really, really good business. It’s not just going to help us in future times in getting a better rate, but it's also giving us an opportunity that if we want to refinance some of the current notes we have, we can get a lower rate on that as well. This can make a big difference for us. We’ve got new investors coming to town. I think it provides a lot of confidence for them to know that we run a good business here.”
Mayor Myron Bailey added, “Not that many cities in Minnesota have AAA. I do remember when I became the mayor 16 years ago, one of the things we always aspired to get to was AA+, which we did. And then we heard it was going to be a very long time before we get to AAA, and we’d need to be a much bigger city.” He continued, “Obviously, it took years to do this and we’re very impressed, and kudos to our staff and council and EDA for making this all happen, by the way. There are definitely going to be cost savings for the citizens of Cottage Grove.”
