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Summary: <br />Louisville, Colorado; Sales Tax <br />Credit Profile <br />Louisville Sales Tax <br />Unenhanced Rating <br />Many issues are enhanced by bond insurance. <br />A +ISPURI /Stable <br />Affirmed <br />Rationale <br />Standard & Poor's Ratings Services affirmed its 'A +' underlying rating (SPUR) on Louisville, Colo.'s sales -tax <br />revenue refunding bonds. <br />The rating reflects our assessment of the city's: <br />• Strong historical coverage of proposed debt service, at 7x in 2008; <br />• Some concentration in the city's top sales -tax generators; and <br />• Solid legal provisions, including a fully funded reserve and additional bonds test requiring 1.75x coverage of <br />proposed combined maximum annual debt service (MADS). <br />Securing the bonds is a first -lien pledge on the one -third portion of the city's 3.0% sales tax dedicated by city <br />ordinance to the city's capital projects fund. The remaining two- thirds of these revenues are used for general city <br />operations and are not pledged to debt service on the bonds. <br />Pledged revenues in fiscal 2008 provided coverage of proposed MADS of a strong 7x. The sales -tax base is <br />somewhat concentrated. This concentration is tempered somewhat in that a high concentration of these sales are in <br />nondiscretionary items, such as groceries and utilities, which leads to less potential volatility in sales -tax collections. <br />In our opinion, legal protections are solid, with an additional bonds test requiring 1.75x coverage of proposed <br />MADS and a fully funded debt service reserve. The city has no current plans or authorization for additional sales <br />and use tax debt. <br />Located 20 miles northwest of Denver and 10 miles southeast of Boulder, Louisville enjoys easy access to 1 -36, the <br />main north -south transportation corridor through this sizable and economically strong metropolitan statistical area. <br />The city's residents (18,325) have access to employment in both Denver and Boulder as well as along the growing <br />industrial and technology corridor between the two cities. The city is essentially built out, but reports continued <br />strong growth in the real estate industry. Income indicators are in our opinion, very high, with median household <br />effective buying income (EBI) and per capita EBI at 158% and 153% nation, respectively. <br />Outlook <br />The stable outlook reflects our expectation that the dedicated sales tax revenue stream will continue to stabilize and <br />provide strong coverage of debt service, protected by a good additional bonds test. <br />Standard & Poor's 1 RatingsDirect on the Global Credit Portal 1 May 11, 2010 2 <br />22 <br />