Utah State Treasurer David Damschen warned legislators Wednesday that a full state takeover of the Utah Transit Authority could damage the state’s now-perfect credit rating, and hurt its ability to borrow for other needs.
Sen. Wayne Harper, R-Taylorsville, who is co-chairman both of the task force and the infrastructure appropriations committee, said Wednesday that “bringing UTA under state purview right now could impact our state bond rating, which we don’t want to do.”
Damschen noted that Utah is one of only 10 states with a perfect AAA bond rating, and protecting that saves the state millions of dollars in credit cost.