“For our residents, this means our focus on improving our parks, roads, attracting new businesses, building new housing inventory and being fiscally prudent has proven to be the right course of action,” said Carstarphen, pledging to build on this progress. “The city and our community partners are just getting started.”
An independent expert confirms Carstarphen’s view.
“This is just incremental upgrade, but it’s definitely positive,” said Marc Pfeiffer, assistant director of Rutgers University’s Bloustein Local Government Research Center. “Generally, it indicates that S&P has confidence in what the city is doing. It recognizes that this city’s finances are improving.”
“An increment upgrade into the “A” category is a good thing for any urban municipality,” said Pfeiffer, formerly a top state Division of Local Government Services official. “If Camden can sustain its improvement, in a few years, it’s likely to see another incremental upgrade. These (rating) changes always happen gradually.”