Standard&Poor's Ratings Services' local government general obligation (GO) ratings are based on our assessment of seven underlying factors and 43 possible qualitative and quantitative adjustments as outlined in our recently released local GO criteria. With the release of the criteria, there is increased transparency on how we assess these factors. We believe the financial metrics, in particular, require additional analytic insight so that the metrics used to develop the ratings reflect our view of a credit's financial position in a consistent and comparable manner. Financial reporting, practices, and results can vary from year to year, across local government type and by state. Standard&Poor's makes analytic adjustments to data in order to better align the data with
