Friday, November 7, 2025
The financial health of Long Beach hasn’t been better as the city received its highest rating from Moody’s in the past 14 years.
“It’s based on your finances, so given that we have a better rating, we get a better interest rate and there’s less risk to financial companies that buy our bond,” City Manager Daniel Creighton said.
Moody’s is a financial service company known for its leading credit rating. The company awarded Long Beach with the highest bond for its handling of fiscal management and health, a rating they haven’t seen since 2011.
“We got a credit rating increase from Moody’s from A3 to an A2,” Creighton said. Our borrowing rate goes down, which will save the city’s Long Beach residents a significant amount of money in the long run.”
The A2 rating is high — considered an upper medium grade — but not the highest for Moody’s. Above that is A1, Aa3, Aa 2, Aa1 and Aaa — all deemed high grades by the company that provides analytics, credit ratings and research to businesses and government entities.
“They’re testing us on our financial health and various financial factors, and that’s the grade we got for it,” City Comptroller Inna Reznik said.
This high score shows financial firms the town has continued to manage its funds responsibly over time.
“They want to make sure that we’re budgeting and we have the funds to actually do what we say we can do,” Creighton said. “We’re getting the income we say we’re gonna get. We’re not overestimating and overstating what we’re gonna get as far as revenue, and not understating what our liabilities are.”
The higher rating thrilled two Long Beach residents.
“If it lowers taxpayers money, it’s a good thing,” said Barry Silberstang, who has lived in the city for eight years..
“I think it’s terrific,” said 28-year resident Annette Richmond. “Hopefully money from these bonds can improve facilities and security.”
With Election Day in view, officials pointed to the government’s goal.
“The city council two years ago ran on reducing the amount of tax increases. The first year was a 0 percent tax increase,” Long Beach spokesman John McNally said. The levers that Dan (Creighton) and Inna (Reznik) on the team utilized was really controlling expenses, since they weren’t increasing revenue. This past year the city stayed under the tax cap again.”
The city plans to utilize these benefits stating they have multiple projects like water and sewer repair rolling out in the near future.
“Timing was perfect because we just put out a bond, so we were able to take advantage of the better credit rating, and got a better interest rate than what we would’ve expected from an A3,” Creighton said.
A higher rating has some thinking that Long Beach has rallied from less fruitful time. “The city was in dire straits a couple years ago,” said Patrick Sullivan, a vendor in Long Beach said
“They were ready to give up the senior center a while ago, because the city’s rating was so low,” Richmond said. “There was a 25 percent increase one year for the taxes.”
That was in 2006 and six years later the increase was close to 15 percent, city officials said.
Looking past the present, the A2 rating is anticipated to move the city forward for at least two decades.
“It will benefit city residents not just today, but every year for 20 years,” Reznik said.
