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Fitch Affirms Jacksonville Beach, Florida's 2002 Utility Revs At 'A+'.


NEW YORK New York, state, United States
New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of
 -- Fitch Ratings Fitch Ratings

An international rating agency for financial institutions, insurance companies, and corporate, sovereign, and municipal debt. Fitch Ratings has headquarters in New York and London and is wholly owned by FIMALAC of Paris.
 has affirmed the 'A+' rating of the City of Jacksonville Beach, FL's $58.3 million utility revenue refunding bonds refunding bond

A bond that is issued for the purpose of retiring an outstanding bond. Issuers refund bond issues to reduce financing costs, eliminate covenants, and alter maturities. See also crossover refunding bonds, prerefunding.
, series 2002. The Rating Outlook is Stable.

The combined utility system consisting of electric, water, and wastewater services, is owned and operated by the city of Jacksonville Beach, FL (the city) and provides security for the bonds. The electric system, accounts for approximately 90% of total revenues with the water and wastewater systems accounting for the balance. Slightly less than half of the electric service provided is to residents in the unincorporated areas of northern St. Johns County.

The rating reflects the utility's conservative management practices, very strong financial performance, and solid power supply. The electric system receives 100% of its power requirements from Florida Municipal Power Agency's (FMPA FMPA Florida Municipal Power Agency
FMPA Fellow of the Master Photographers Association
FMPA Frankfort-Mandibular Plane Angle
) St. Lucie St. Lucie may refer to:
  • St. Lucie, Florida
  • St. Lucie County, Florida
  • St. Lucie nuclear power plant
See also
  • Saint Lucy
  • Saint Lucia (disambiguation)
 Project and All-Requirements Power Project (rated 'A' and 'A+', respectively by Fitch). Since 2001, the city's accelerated pay down of generation related debt has totaled over $20 million, allowing the system to significantly improve its financial position. As a result, debt service coverage for the combined system improved to over 4 times (x) in 2005 from about 3x in 2001, and for the same period equity to capitalization improved to a solid 71% from 69%, with current cash available to cover about 180 days of operations.

Looking forward, Fitch expects the utility system to continue with further accelerated debt pay down. Management plans to dramatically reduce or extinguish Extinguish

Retire or pay off debt.
 the system's debt burden by 2012. The utility will also continue with their fully cash funded capital expenditure plan, aimed at maintaining the strong system reliability and insulating the distribution infrastructure from potential hurricane damage. Additional credit strengths include the city's favorable service territory characteristics (albeit small), with a customer base comprised primarily of residential accounts, a growing City and MSA (Metropolitan Service Area) An urban area with at least 50,000 people plus surrounding counties. There are 306 MSAs and 428 RSAs (rural service areas) in the U.S. MSAs and RSAs are used to allocate cellular licenses.  economy (City of Jacksonville, FL rated 'AA' with a Positive Outlook by Fitch), and above average wealth indicators.

Credit concerns include the city's reliance on electric system transfers (27% of general fund revenues in fiscal year 2005). This is somewhat offset by the system's strong financial position and that the transfer, pegged at 4.5 mills per kilowatt-hour of electricity purchases, only accounts for about 4% of utility system revenues. The rating also reflects the systems above average retail rates and off-balance sheet obligations attributable to long-term purchase power contracts with FMPA.

Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use Terms of Use are rules set up by the owner of an intellectual property or service to govern how they may be legally used.

In many cases, terms of service are used as a contractual agreement between a company and users of a service they provide.
 of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance and other relevant policies and procedures Policies and Procedures are a set of documents that describe an organization's policies for operation and the procedures necessary to fulfill the policies. They are often initiated because of some external requirement, such as environmental compliance or other governmental  are also available from the 'Code
COPYRIGHT 2006 Business Wire
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2006, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Publication:Business Wire
Date:Oct 17, 2006
Words:452
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