by Brad Parsons
Staff Writer
The City released this year’s financial report in record time. That information might inspire yawns on Bay Street, but City financial planners are hoping it will excite Wall Street.
As the next step in the quest for a better bond rating, the City is learning to slash through webs of bureaucracy to gather, organize and release detailed financial reports from its own departments and an unwieldy group of independent authorities. This year the City released its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report in late March, a full two months earlier than past years. Quick, efficient financial reporting appealed to New York bond-rating agencies, said City Finance Director Cal Ray.
“Getting these reports out quickly is more than just another sticker on the City’s plaque,” said Ray. “It’s an indicator of an organization that’s fiscally agile. That looks good, particularly to the rating agencies.”
The City would like to bump its AA bond rating to AAA. Only the most efficient public entities roam that territory, and Ray said early reporting was a common feature of their success.
The City has been examining the triple-A-rated public entities, trying to decipher what appealed to rating firms. Wall Street favored public entities that put their reports on the street by Dec. 31, said Ray. The City has made that date its ultimate target.
“We showed improvement this year over previous years, and we will try to continue that improvement over several years with our priority set on hitting that Dec. 31 target. “That’s the ultimate goal, but it will take a lot of cooperation.”
With a cadre of independent authorities included in the City’s report, Ray said Jacksonville’s task could be more complicated than most. Financial information from JEA, the Jacksonville Airport Authority and the Jacksonville Transportation Authority have to be included. That means each of the authorities must also set their sights on the end-of-year deadline.
Ray said the authorities had their own reasons to speed their reporting. They have their own bond-rating aspirations he said.
In an e-mail to Mayor John Peyton’s staff, interim Chief Financial Officer Walt Bussells said the new reporting standards would help create the foundation for new investing and borrowing strategies set to save the City millions annually. With a higher bond rating the City would pay less interest to borrow. With a rating bump, the City would pay about $1 million less a year.
As the City gets its numbers out earlier, Bussells said the City and the authorities would “take the next steps forward in integrating the investing and borrowing processes . . . that hold real promise to even further improve the City’s investing and borrowing results with equal or less risk than now.”
Ray said efficient reporting was only one component of the total package desired by Wall Street. However, he said many of the other parts were already in place. Peyton’s first budget bumped the City’s “rainy-day fund” to $37 million in a nod to Wall Street. The rating firms also look at personnel and past performance, said Ray.
Ray said he didn’t know how far the City had to go to reach the triple-A tier. But he said he thought the City was close.
“My sense is that we’re a real high double-A, and maybe it won’t take a lot to the the bump to triple-A,” he said. “On the other hand, they may see some things we don’t know about, and maybe it takes us a little while longer.”