GUILDERLAND — This month, Moody’s Investors Service, a bond credit-rating business, downgraded the general obligations rating for the Guilderland Central School District from Aa3 to A1, affecting $37.7 million in debt. The negative outlook has been removed.

“According to our financial advisor, it’s a little bit of a detriment,” Neil Sanders, the district’s assistant superintendent for business, told The Enterprise this week. “It would be a bigger impact for serial bonds.”

For two years in a row, the state’s comptroller has labeled Guilderland as “susceptible” to stress. The district has dipped into its fund balance, or rainy-day savings, in recent years to preserve programs; then, with less cash on hand, it has borrowed money to be able to meet payroll and other expenses in case state aid was delayed.

“At the end of the day,” Sanders told the school board in February when the most recent comptroller’s report was released, “it’s been about what we need to have to insure a good educational program for children…At the end of the day, we’ve done the right thing for students.”

Since 2009, the state’s Foundation Aid to Guilderland had been flat and, since 2010, the gap elimination adjustment subtracted $19.2 million in aid. To close multi-million-dollar budget gaps, the district has cut 227.6 posts since 2009. Next year’s $93.7 million budget, approved by voters on May 19, uses some of the added state aid to restore money to the reserves.

Guilderland currently has a $92 million budget with the fund balance estimated at 2.1 percent. State law allows districts to have up to 4 percent, and the comptroller would like to see at least 3 percent.

Moody’s, one of the Big Three credit-rating agencies — the others are Fitch Group and Standard & Poor’s — says the point of its ratings is to “provide investors with a simple system of gradation by which future relative creditworthiness of securities may be gauged.” It uses a rating system from A to C with Aaa being the highest quality and the lowest credit risk. Guilderland is still in the A category but has dropped a level.

Under its former rating, Aa3, Guilderland’s long-term rating was “high quality and very low credit risk”; now, as A1, Guilderland’s long-term rating is “upper-medium grade and low credit risk.”

Guilderland’s short-term rating remains the same as Prime 1, “best ability to repay short-term debt.”

The ratings sheet from Moody’s says Guilderland’s rating could go up with “consecutive operating surpluses leading to restoration of reserves commensurate with higher rating categories.”

Sanders said that for Guilderland’s current $17.3 million capital project to upgrade the district’s seven buildings and improve security and technology, the district, as is typical, is using one-year bond anticipation notes for two years before using serial bonds.

“Hopefully, by then, Moody will have noticed we’ve built back up our reserves,” said Sanders.