{"id":7157,"date":"2015-12-16T01:24:10","date_gmt":"2015-12-16T06:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=7157"},"modified":"2015-12-16T01:24:10","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T06:24:10","slug":"brick-receives-high-grade-credit-rating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2015\/12\/brick-receives-high-grade-credit-rating\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick Receives &#8216;High Grade&#8217; Credit Rating"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3985\" style=\"width: 628px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/checkbook_township.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3985\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3985\" class=\"size-large wp-image-3985\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/checkbook_township-1024x547.png\" alt=\"Brick Municipal Building \/ Photo: Daniel Nee\" width=\"618\" height=\"330\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/checkbook_township.png 1024w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/checkbook_township-400x214.png 400w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/checkbook_township-150x80.png 150w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/checkbook_township-500x267.png 500w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/checkbook_township-600x321.png 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 618px) 100vw, 618px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3985\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brick Municipal Building \/ Photo: Daniel Nee<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Brick\u2019s credit rating was assessed at Aa2 by Moody\u2019s Investors Services, the third-highest rating a municipality can receive.<\/p>\n<p>The ratings is considered \u201chigh grade\u201d and an overall investment-grade rating, which allows the township to pay low interest rates on its debt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey look at us as a very financially supple town,\u201d said Mayor John Ducey.<\/p>\n<p>Ducey said part of the reason for the high rating was due to the township\u2019s current surplus. Brick\u2019s surplus level became a campaign issue during the most recent election, with the Republican council candidates criticizing Ducey\u2019s administration for keeping approximately $10 million surplus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re giving us the highest rating because we have the surplus,\u201d Ducey said. \u201cThere was talk leading up to the [election] that we shouldn\u2019t have a surplus, that it\u2019s a waste. But it shows we\u2019re a financially strong town, that we\u2019re not going out of business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brick uses its borrowing power to fund its capital budget, which includes items such as road improvements, park projects, equipment upgrades and other infrastructure improvements.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe only way you can do a park, do infrastructure [projects], is to borrow,\u201d said Ducey. \u201cAnd the interest rate you pay is based on your rating. It\u2019s not the most exciting thing in the world, but it\u2019s an exciting thing for the town.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2015\/12\/brick-receives-high-grade-credit-rating\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Surplus level cited as reason for high, investment-grade rating, mayor says&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[301,24,1826],"class_list":["post-7157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-bond-rating","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-credit-rating"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/checkbook_township.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-1Rr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}