State's credit trouble trickles to street level
In the Kenai, theyll consider a new heating system. Elsewhere, its ports, streets or water and sewer projects.
Octobers round of municipal elections will ask Alaskans for permission to borrow money for critical infrastructure in local communities. Thanks to the Alaska Legislatures failure to erase a multibillion-dollar deficit, that infrastructure will cost more. In some cases, it might be a lot more.
The issue is the states municipal bond bank, which cities and boroughs use to borrow money. That bank relies on the states credit rating, and as the states credit has fallen, the cost of borrowing money has gone up.
Certainly the bond bank program, as the state has been downgraded, has been similarly downgraded, said Deven Mitchell, the states debt manager and executive director of the bond bank.
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