Moody’s Upgrades Wisconsin’s Bond Rating

One of the major bond rating agencies upgraded the state of Wisconsin on Thursday, the same day the state released potentially dire budget numbers.

The ratings agency Moody’s revised Wisconsin’s outlook from stable to positive. Moody’s cited Wisconsin’s well-funded pension system, as well as recent steps taken to reduce the state’s budget deficit measured by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

Dale Knapp with the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance said that when bond ratings go up, the cost of borrowing money goes down. But Knapp said that there’s still room for improvement.

“We’re still rated fairly low — we’re at Aa2, which is among the lower bond ratings in the country,” he said. “But they’re seeing some positives in terms of the state budget.”

The upgrade came on the same day the state reported a projected $2.2 billion shortfall in the next budget. That projection is driven by short-term factors — the difference between agency spending requests and tax revenue growth for the next two years.