Mass. Communities Face Threat Of Losing Coveted AAA Ratings

The uncertainty in the world economy is trickling down to Massachusetts in numerous ways.

Here's one of them: a dozen cities and towns in the state face the threat of losing their coveted AAA credit ratings. The communities affected are Acton, Bedford, Belmont, Brookline, Concord, Dover, Hingham, Lexington, Newton, Wayland, Wellesley and Weston. (Two regional school districts, Concord-Carlisle and Lincoln-Sudbury, are in the same predicament.)

So far, they all still have perfect scores. But the agency Moody's has put a "negative outlook" on their ratings, and if they're eventually downgraded those communities and districts would likely have to pay higher interest rates to borrow money for projects such as building schools.

WBUR's All Things Considered host Sacha Pfeiffer spoke with Steve Crosby, who was the state secretary of administration and finance under Govs. Paul Cellucci and Jane Swift and is now dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at UMass-Boston, and asked him how the move by Moody's in Massachusetts is related to the downgrading of the nation's credit rating.