PROVIDENCE, R.I. - When Moody's Investors Service waded into the Rhode Island debate this past week over paying the bonds that financed Curt Schilling's failed 38 Studios, it was not wading in as an uninvolved observer.
All three of the nation's top bond-rating services -- Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings -- have been paid more than $573,413 in recent years by the State of Rhode island to rate the quality of its bond issues.
The state has paid Moody's $188,720 since Jan. 1, 2010, to rate, for investors, the worthiness of more than two dozen bonds issued by a variety of state agencies, from the Department of Transportation to the now-defunct Board of Governors for Higher Education.
Payments for its rating services ran as high as $51,300 for a single, refunding bond.
During this same period, the state paid Standard & Poor's $229,693, and Fitch, $155,000, according to the state controller's office.
And this does not include the amounts the Economic Development Corporation, or any of the state's other quasi-public agencies, paid one or more of these rating agencies.
This past week, Moody's downgraded Rhode Island' s 38 Studios bonds by two notches, and placed the remainder of Rhode Island' s debt, which totals $2.1 billion, under review for possible downgrade.
EDC was unable on Friday to pinpoint how much it paid Moody's and Standard & Poor's initially to rate the 38 Studios' bond.
But this week's warning action provided reinforcement to the Chafee administration's argument that defaulting on the "moral obligation bonds'' would put the state at financial risk, on the day before General Assembly leaders unveiled their proposed budget.