Fairfax County Board Chair Sharon Bulova issued a stiff rebuttal to the decision by the New York-based Moody’s Investors Service for its placing a “negative outlook” marker next to its Aaa rating for the county last week. Noting the long history of triple-A ratings from Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch, she called Moody’s latest action “unfortunate and unfair,” based, she said, “On Moody’s overemphasis on reserves and a change in their ratings criteria and does not indicate a deterioration of Fairfax County’s fiscal management.”

She added that the Fairfax board has always been “able to make the difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions necessary to maintain our quality of life and responsibly invest in our future.” Observers noted that Fairfax’s fund balance of five percent of its annual operating budget was a cause for the Moody’s decision.