S&P reaffirms Birmingham's AAA rating

By Lisa Brody

The city of Birmingham was assigned a AAA rating by S&P Global Ratings, which it has held since 2002.

S&P Global Ratings is an American credit rating agency and a division of S&P Global that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks, bonds, and commodities. S&P is considered the largest of the Big Three credit-rating agencies, which also include Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings. The city of Birmingham is one of only 14 municipalities in the state of Michigan to have a AAA rating, its highest.

S&P Global Ratings assigned the AAA rating to the $4.75 million 2021 unlimited tax general obligation parks and recreation bond series on Tuesday, April 27. They attributed the city's tax base, management, budgetary performance, budget flexibility and low debt ratios as factors to its ratings.

“What this rating means is that Birmingham is able to sell these bonds in the market at the lowest interest rates possible for this type of debt. This rating saves our taxpayers money by lowering the amount of taxes needed to repay the debt,” said Birmingham Finance Director Mark Gerber.