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Fitch Rates Montgomery Community College, MD 'AA-'.


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.
 assigns an 'AA-' rating to the approximately $33,000,000 Montgomery County Montgomery County may refer to:
  • Montgomery County, Alabama
  • Montgomery County, Arkansas
  • Montgomery County, Georgia
  • Montgomery County, Illinois
  • Montgomery County, Indiana
  • Montgomery County, Iowa
  • Montgomery County, Kansas
 Revenue Authority lease revenue bonds (Montgomery College For the community college near Conroe, Texas, see .
Montgomery College is the oldest and largest community college in Maryland, U.S. It is located in Montgomery County, MD and divided into three campuses, the largest of which is in Rockville; the other campuses are in Takoma
 Arts Center Project) series 2005A. The Rating Outlook is Stable.

A competitive sale is expected Oct. 11. Bond proceeds will be used to construct an Arts Center on the Takoma Park/Silver Springs campus and to fund capitalized interest Capitalized interest

Interest that is not immediately expensed, but rather is considered as an asset and is then amortized through the income statement over time. In the context of project financing, interest that is paid by additional borrowing.
, a reserve fund, and costs of issuance. The financial advisor is Public Financial Management.

The site on which the Arts Center is to be constructed is owned by the Montgomery Community College The term Montgomery Community College may refer to:
  • Montgomery College, a two-year college in Rockville, Takoma Park/Silver Spring, and Germantown, Maryland
  • Fulton-Montgomery Community College, a two-year college in Johnstown, New York
 (the college) and leased to the Montgomery Community College Foundation (the foundation) pursuant to a Condominium condominium

In modern property law, individual ownership of one dwelling unit within a multidwelling building. Unit owners have undivided ownership interest in the land and those portions of the building shared in common.
 Lease Agreement, which expires 30 years after completion of the project. The foundation will lease the completed project to the college pursuant to a lease which expires in 2030. The lease payments will be equal to the debt service payments and are payable solely from the major facilities reserve fund fees (facilities fee). Currently the fee is $5.00 per hour and is charged to all students at the three campuses.

The 'AA-' is based on the stability and sufficiency of the facility fee revenues. The college agrees to charge a facility fee sufficient to cover the lease payment by 1.1 times (x). The fee was initially collected in fiscal 1992 at the rate of $1.00 per student hour. The rate increased to $2.00 in fiscal 2002, followed by an increase to $4.00 in fiscal 2004 and to $5.00 in fiscal 2005. For fiscal 2005, the fee based on 485,892 hours generated $2.5 million of revenue. The board of trustees board of trustees Politics The posse of thugs who oversee an institution's administration. See Board of directors.  of the college has the right to increase the fee and there is no maximum fee.

The facility fee cannot be used to fund operating cost. It must first be used for the annual lease payment and then used for other capital improvements. Beginning in fiscal 2009, the first full year of the lease payment, the payment is estimated to be $2.4 million. Based on the average annual growth rate in student hours between fiscals 1995 and 2005 of 2.1% and a facility fee of $5.00, debt service coverage is projected to range from 1.1x to 1.3x. Fitch also assumed no growth in hours, with a facility fee of $5.00, and the coverage declines to slightly over 1.0x. In this case, the fee would need to be increased to $5.50 per hour to meet 1.1x coverage of the lease payment. The $0.50 increase translates to an additional $15 per year for a student taking 30 hours. Fitch believes the history of enrollment and hours growth should continue, based on state demographics which reflect an expected 10% growth in high school graduates through 2012. The enrollment growth, coupled with the affordability of the facility fee, should provide consistent coverage of the lease payments.

Fall 2004 headcount enrollment was 22,254. The college has three campuses. The Takoma Park/Silver Spring Campus, with 19.5 acres at the edge of the Washington, D.C. metroplex, opened in 1950 and had a fall 2004 headcount of 5,154 students. The Rockville Campus, with 84.6 acres located north of D.C., opened in 1965 and had a fall 2004 headcount of 14,953. The Germantown Campus, with 232.6 acres 30 miles north of D.C. in the I-270 High-Tech Corridor, opened in 1978 and had a fall 2004 headcount of 5,326.

The series 2005A bonds will be the first revenue bonds issued for the college. Most of the facilities on all three campuses are financed by the state or county. Fitch rates the general obligation debt of the state of Maryland 'AAA' and the general obligation debt of Montgomery County 'AAA'. In addition to capital support, the state and county also fund operations. Approximately 41% of the college's unrestricted revenues are from the county and 15% from the state. An additional 27% of the college's funding is from tuition and fees, which were $3,564 for a full-time student Full-Time Student

A status that is important for determining dependency exemptions. An individual enrolled in a post-secondary institution may be eligible for certain tax breaks.

Notes:
The full-time status is based on what the individual's school considers full time.
 in fiscal 2005.

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 of Conduct' section of this site.
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Publication:Business Wire
Date:Sep 21, 2005
Words:751
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