State’s Credit Rating Raised: Moody’s Investor Service...

State’s Credit Rating Raised: Moody’s Investor Service has upgraded the state of California’s credit rating from AA to AAA, the service’s highest rating of credit-worthiness, state Treasurer Thomas Hayes announced. The rating services reduced California’s ratings after the state faced a $1.5-billion deficit in 1982 and 1983 and came to the brink of issuing registered warrants, the equivalent of IOUs, to pay some bills. Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Investors Service restored California’s AAA rating in their services in 1986. Hayes said California is now among only 10 states with AAA ratings from Moody’s, and he said the higher credit rating will apply to a planned sale of $450 million in park, jail and school bonds planned next week. A higher credit rating is advice to investors that the risk is lower, and it usually results in bidders offering to buy state bonds at lower interest rates.