On their first day, they read documents. On their second, they asked questions. On their third, they began to calculate.

Cedric Haughton and Adelaide Lark of the Continental Rating Agency arrived at the Municipal Treasury at 8:15 this morning — fifteen minutes before the building formally opens — and were admitted through the staff entrance on Mercer Street. They carried between them four document cases and what appeared to be a fresh ream of graph paper.

They are here to determine whether Bobington is a good bet.

The city intends to borrow approximately 350 million florins through a bond issuance to finance Phase 1 of the Veridan Corridor Tramway. The bond prospectus must be circulated by 31 March — thirteen days from now. Before it can be circulated, it requires a credit assessment from the Continental Rating Agency. That assessment depends on Haughton and Lark.

Haughton, who is 58 and has been doing this work for twenty-three years, led the Edgeminster water utility bond downgrade in 2023 — a decision that raised that city’s borrowing costs by sixty basis points and is still talked about in Edgeminster with a bitterness usually reserved for sporting defeats. He is not a man who gives reassurance easily.

Lark, who is 24 and on her first field assignment, has been observed taking notes in a hand so small and precise that it might be mistaken for printed type. She has asked more questions than her senior colleague in every session so far. Treasury officials, who had expected Haughton to be the difficult one, have reportedly adjusted their expectations.

Today’s session focused on two areas: the city’s copper cost sensitivity models and the structure of the contingency reserve.

The contingency reserve stands at 142 million florins. This is the sum that sits between Bobington and the kind of fiscal emergency that Edgeminster experienced. The question is whether 142 million is sufficient to absorb the range of copper price outcomes that the tramway project might encounter.

At the current copper price of 795 florins per tonne — which has fallen for fifteen consecutive days and is now 94 florins below the crisis peak — the Phase 1 overrun is estimated at approximately 280 million florins, well within the 350-million bond capacity. But the Rating Agency does not assess current prices. It assesses what prices might do over the twenty-year life of a bond.

Deputy Treasurer Annabel Whitford, who has been Haughton and Lark’s primary interlocutor, was seen entering the Treasury at 7:50 AM — a full half-hour before the assessors. She was carrying a box that contained, according to a colleague, “every copper forecast published in the last three years.”

If the Agency downgrades Bobington’s rating, the consequences are precise: borrowing costs increase by 40 to 60 basis points, adding 8 to 12 million florins in interest payments over the bond’s twenty-year term. This is not a catastrophe. It is a surcharge — payable by the ratepayers of Bobington for the next two decades.

The assessors have two more days. They depart Friday. Their preliminary assessment will be delivered to the Treasury before the bond prospectus deadline. The formal rating decision follows within a fortnight.

Haughton and Lark emerged from the Treasury at 4:45 PM. They walked together toward the Ashbury Lane commercial district, where they are staying at the Harbour View Hotel. Neither spoke to this newspaper. Lark was carrying the same four document cases. The graph paper was no longer visible.

One imagines it is now covered in numbers.