Borrowing money just got a little easier for Warren County Fiscal Court.

Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon announced at Friday’s fiscal court meeting that the county’s bond rating from Moody’s Investors Service has been upgraded from Aa2 to Aa1, which puts the county in exclusive company.

“An upgrade like this is always a good thing,” said Grant Satterly, director of financial services for the Frankfort-based Kentucky Association of Counties. “I would say there’s probably no more than a handful of counties with a rating like that. It will mean cheaper borrowing costs.”

Buchanon touted the upgrade, saying: “We already had a great credit rating, higher than most Kentucky counties, but we are proud to have earned an even higher rating.

“This means our bonds are more attractive to investors. Warren County will pay a lower rate when selling new bonds.”

County Treasurer Greg Burrell, citing the county’s growth and the county government’s healthy reserve fund that amounts to approximately 100 percent of the county’s general fund, said the upgrade in the bond rating was not unexpected.

“We’ve been expecting an upgrade the last couple of years, based on the strength of our financials,” Burrell said.

He said the upgrade comes at a good time. The county has yet to sell the $5.7 million in bonds fiscal court approved in October to pay for a contract with Indiana-based Energy Savings Group to make improvements in lighting, heating and cooling at 42 county-owned buildings.

“We should receive a lower interest rate on those bonds,” Burrell said.

The magistrates passed another resolution Friday that should further improve the county’s fiscal health. They voted to authorize the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center Inc., SKyPAC Tenant Inc. and SKyPAC Lender Inc. to proceed with “unwinding” the New Markets Tax Credit financing program for the construction of SKyPAC. The resolution also approves dissolving both SKyPAC Tenant and SKyPAC Lender, the entities involved in the 2011 financing through the federal tax incentive program.

The move is similar to last year’s transfer of the title to Bowling Green Ballpark from the Bowling Green Special Purpose Entity to the Warren County Downtown Economic Development Authority. The Special Purpose Entity was dissolved as its financing through the same New Market program ran its course.

“This basically wipes out the debt associated with the New Markets Tax Credit program,” Burrell said. “The net savings to the county should be close to $7 million.”

Also at Friday’s meeting, the magistrates approved a contract with Western Kentucky University for the installation of a Kentucky Mesonet weather monitoring station at Ephram White Park.

The new station, to be funded by WKU at a cost of about $25,000, will replace one that had been located near the General Motors Corvette Assembly Plant.

“That station was struck by lightning earlier in the year,” said Stuart Foster, Kentucky Mesonet director. “There were changes due to construction at the Corvette plant that affected that station as well.”

Foster worked with Warren County Parks and Recreation Director Chris Kummer to locate a new site for a Mesonet station in the northern end of the county to complement the one located on the WKU Farm in the county’s southern end.

Foster expects the new station to be built in the spring. Like the 69 other stations spread around the state, it will provide meteorological data to the National Weather Service.

The magistrates also approved in a 6-0 vote a resolution in support of the current county ambulance service operated by Med Center Health and expressed “concern with the introduction of a new ambulance service in Warren County.”

Southern Kentucky Ambulance Service, a subsidiary of Bowling Green’s TriStar Greenview Regional Hospital, has submitted a Certificate of Need application to the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services to operate an ambulance service that would compete with Med Center EMS.

Buchanon pointed out that Med Center EMS has operated an ambulance service for 40 years with no cost to county taxpayers.

Sixth District Magistrate Darrell Traughber said, “I believe this falls under the category of ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ ”

The magistrates also approved on second and final reading the rezoning of 16.1783 acres at 687 Carter Sims Road from agriculture to single-family residential. Developer Barrett Hammer plans to subdivide the property into as many as 64 lots.

They approved spending $5,869.62 to Sigma Organics for three snow blowers to be used at Buchanon, Ephram White and Phil Moore parks.