S&P Global Ratings assigned its 'AAA' long-term rating to the Town of Franklin, Mass.' $3.8 million series general obligation (GO) land acquisition bonds. The outlook is stable. Securing the bonds is Franklin's full-faith-and-credit GO pledge, subject to Proposition 2-1/2 limitations. Despite limitations imposed by the commonwealth's levy limit law, we do not make a rating distinction between the limited- and unlimited-tax GO pledges because the ad valorem tax pledged is not from a measurably narrower property tax base and there are no fungibility resource limitations. We rate the town above the sovereign because we believe it can maintain better credit characteristics than the U.S. in a stress scenario, based on its predominantly locally derived revenue base and our view that
