High credit rating boosts Bensenville
As Bensenville continues to reinvent its image and improve finances, the village earned a boost with an A+ bond rating from Standard & Poor's.
The bond rating, announced this week, not only means Bensenville's finances are stable, according to the company that assesses independent credit risk, but also means the village can borrow money at lower interest rates and save taxpayer money.
S&P's highest rating from 22 categories is AAA, and Village President Frank Soto said he is pleased Bensenville is only four steps away from a top ranking in its first time being assessed by the firm.
“They dissected our strategic plan, reserve accounts, saw us settling lawsuits, and took note of our new financial policies and procedures they delved deeply into what's going on and how we're doing it,” Soto said.
“If you envision a report that keyed onto some of the critical financial issues we had before, and how desperate it was and where it is now, it's a phenomenal turnaround,” he added.
That turnaround is what Soto and his staff have been aggressively pursuing since his election last April, shortly after Bensenville was ranked No. 1 among “America's Fastest-Dying Towns” two years ago by Forbes magazine.
The changes began with hiring new key administrators, including Village Manager Mike Cassady and his assistant Denise Pieroni, who both have backgrounds in finance, Soto said, as well as new Finance Director Tim Sloth.
At the start of their tenure, Bensenville finished the last fiscal year with a $5.2 million deficit. But the S&P report praised village leaders for settling a lawsuit with the city of Chicago over the expansion of O'Hare International Airport for $16 million, then using that money to pay off debt and build reserves.
At the end of the current fiscal year, officials expect to be more than $3 million in the black.
Bensenville's latest accolades come on the heels of an increased municipal bond rating from Moody's, another credit agency, from A3 to A1 last summer. This puts Bensenville among its top categories, also just four steps away from Moody's Aaa rating, the highest of 26 categories.
With its new financial muscle, Soto said Bensenville leaders plan to borrow $11 million in Build America Bonds, to make infrastructure repairs in the North Industrial Park. The park sits northwest of Irving Park and York roads, running north to Thorndale Avenue.
The village board has given the loan plan preliminary approval. Soto said he hopes projects will break ground this spring.
“Our industrial park has been an issue for years, with giant potholes and major flooding,” Soto said “You couldn't bring your clients there. (Companies') products would be damaged just leaving the facilities. The areas was built in the ‘30s and ‘40s and hasn't seen any type of improvement since. When I took office it was at an almost 50 percent vacancy rate. Even though it was in DuPage County, next to the second-busiest airport in the country and enjoys the lower taxes of DuPage County, it still didn't have any sustainability.”
The goal, he says, is to turn the area into an international business park and attract new businesses, bolster revenue and property values.
“If we make that area more profitable,” Soto said, “that will supplement taxpayers' contributions.”