Moody's Investors Service has rated South Carolina's general obligation bonds as "Aaa," and Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Investors Service, Inc. rate these bonds as "AAA," representing the highest ratings awarded. The Comptroller General’s Office annually furnishes the State’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report and related information to the bond rating firms. This process is critical to ensuring that the State maintains its current high bond ratings. A report issued in 1997 by the South Carolina Legislative Audit Council emphasized the usefulness of the information that the Comptroller General’s Office provides in the determination of the State’s credit rating.
During the fiscal year ended June 30, 1997, South Carolina issued $95.000 million and retired $94.385 million in general obligation bonds payable by governmental funds. Of the amount issued, $45.000 million were State highway bonds. The State budgets and pays principal and interest on capital improvement bonds from current resources of the Budgetary General Fund. The Department of Transportation Special Revenue Fund pays the debt service on highway bonds. At June 30, 1997, the Higher Education Funds reported State institution general obligation bonds outstanding of $85.365 million.
The State's available legal debt margin at June 30, 1997, was $4.635 million for institution bonds. State law limits annual debt service expenditures rather than directly limiting the amount of outstanding debt for general obligation bonds/notes. The annual debt service margin at June 30, 1997, was $51.455 million for highway bonds and $68.276 million for general obligation bonds excluding institution and highway bonds.
Net general obligation bonds/notes outstanding per capita (which excludes
general obligation bonds payable from Higher Education Funds) is a useful indicator
to citizens, investors and management of the State's debt position. The following
table shows this amount at June 30 for the last three years:
The General Services Fund, an Internal Service Fund, had $28.977 million of limited obligation lease revenue bonds outstanding at June 30, 1997.
The primary government's higher education institutions and enterprise entities
had revenue bonds, notes, and certificates of participation of $1.261 billion
outstanding on June 30, 1997. Revenue bonds, notes, and certificates of participation
outstanding (expressed in thousands) by agency were:
In addition, discretely presented component units had the following amounts
of bonds and notes outstanding (expressed in thousands) at June 30, 1997:
During its fiscal year ended December 31, 1996, the Public Service Authority (Santee-Cooper) advance refunded $342.970 million in revenue bonds to reduce its total debt service payments over the next twenty-seven years by approximately $150.258 million and to obtain an economic gain of approximately $27.097 million. For additional details, see Note 11 in the Notes to the Financial Statements.