Illinois Credit Rating Lowered by S&P as Pension Costs Rise
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Illinois had its debt rating cut one level to A- by Standard & Poor’s, which threatened to downgrade the state again following lawmakers’ failure to bolster the nation’s worst-funded pension system.
The rating action comes before the state’s planned sale next week of $500 million of general-obligation securities. The deal is still set for Jan. 30, Abdon Pallasch, Illinois’s assistant budget director, said in a telephone interview.