Charles County Commissioners held a public hearing Sept. 1 on a $100 million bond issue — a third larger than last year’s borrowing and the county’s biggest annual bond sale in recent years — even as the county’s own credit rating continues to outpace the state of Maryland’s.
The itemized breakdown, drawn from the county’s own official bond hearing notice, shows water and sewer projects claiming the largest share at $47.8 million, followed by general government facility improvements ($16.75 million), Board of Education facility renovations ($16 million), new school construction ($8.9 million), transportation projects ($7 million), watershed protection and restoration ($2.1 million), environmental service fund projects ($1.2 million), and park projects ($250,000). The $8.9 million in new school construction bonds carries a specific repayment structure: under state and county law, those bonds are paid first from fair-share school construction excise taxes and only fall back on general county tax revenue if that’s insufficient.
This year’s $100 million ask is a sharp jump from 2025’s $75 million bond issue, which was weighted heavily toward a single project — $37 million for the Mattawoman Wastewater Treatment Plant — alongside $17.2 million for government facilities and parks, including the county animal shelter and a sports and wellness center, and $11.5 million for school renovations. That, in turn, followed a $73 million issue in December 2024. The county hasn’t disclosed a single anchor project this year on the scale of the Mattawoman plant; instead, the increase is spread across a broader slate of transportation, government-facility, and school work alongside continued water and sewer investment.
The size of the increase comes as Charles County heads toward a milestone: the county has held a AAA bond rating — the highest possible — from all three major agencies, Fitch Ratings, S&P Global Ratings, and Moody’s Investors Service, for nine consecutive years as of the county’s most recent reaffirmation, a streak that would extend to a tenth year around this bond sale. That rating rests on formal debt policies that cap annual debt payments at 10% of operating revenue and financial reserves that have exceeded 60% of revenues, according to the county’s own past rating announcements. The top rating keeps the county’s borrowing costs low regardless of how much it borrows in a given year.
That consistency stands in contrast to the state of Maryland’s own recent credit history. Moody’s downgraded Maryland’s general obligation bonds from AAA to Aa1 in 2025, and the state dropped its relationship with Moody’s entirely this spring rather than continue working with what state Treasurer Dereck Davis called a “toxic” relationship; S&P has since kept a Negative Outlook on the state even while assigning its bonds a AAA rating. Charles County’s own borrowing, by contrast, has drawn no such downgrades or negative outlooks from any of the three agencies in recent years.
Commissioners voted unanimously to proceed with the sale, which is scheduled to close Oct. 27.
