While most people might not grasp all the implications of a municipal bond rating -- the phrase alone can inspire yawns -- the AA3 rating recently bestowed on the Town of Hempstead by Moody's Investor Services has already begun to pay dividends to local taxpayers.

Late last week, the town completed a bond sale of $57 million at interest rates between 3.6 and 4.1 percent. While those numbers are fodder for the accountant, what they mean in dollars and cents is that the town will save nearly $122,000 over the life of those particular bonds, and more than $1 million on all bonded indebtedness based on a reduction of interest on that debt by three full percentage points.

And as any local pol will be glad to tell you, decreased indebtedness makes it a heck of a lot easier to either hold the line on taxes or perhaps even trim them in the future.

The Moody rating, issued earlier this month, was the second such welcome news the township received this year. Several months ago another financial service, Fitch IBCA, awarded the Hempstead Town an AA- rating.

Based on Moody's assessment, the Town of Hempstead became the highest rated of all Long Island towns, whether they be in Nassau or Suffolk County.

"It's pretty significant stuff," said an obviously pleased Supervisor Richard Guardino on Monday. "And it's significant on two levels.

"To begin with, you have an international investor's service, Moody's, coming in and going over all of our books, and applauding us with phrases like 'prudent budget practices' and 'solid financial performance.'

"The quotes that jumped out of their report were just great," Guardino continued. "These ratings and those accompanying remarks establish the town as an excellent credit risk and instill confidence in potential investors."

The report by Moody's went on to note that the Town of Hempstead's stable outlook was based upon a well-established track record of sound financial planning and performance, manageable debt requirements, and a large and diverse tax base.

"In a phrase, in upgrading our bonds, they've solidified our reputation," Supervisor Guardino said. "Of the 930 towns in New York State, only 10 have this high a bond rating.

"And on a practical level, the other aspect of this is, when we go to market with a bond, we can do so being on the hook for a lower interest rate."

The overall bond sale the town undertook last week was for $57.357 million, the bulk of which represents a refinancing of the existing town debt at a lower interest rate than the municipality had been paying.

In addition, $39 million dollars of the bond sale will go toward local road improvements, while $8 million will pay for the continued upgrading and renovation of the town's parks.

Asked how, in his opinion, the town achieved such fine fiscal health, Guardino said the prime factor was "aggressive expenditure control."

"Over the course of this year, we eliminated another 50 jobs from the town payroll," he explained. "Many of those came about as a direct result of our early retirement program.

"In addition, we are asking our people to be more productive and efficient in the way they go about doing their jobs, and along the same lines, we've been evaluating our utility services to see how we can save money there.

"For instance, we're redoing our street lights throughout the township, installing a different type of lighting that will help us to save money. We're also changing our telephone service, again with costs in mind."

"In short," Guardino said. "We are looking at how each and every nickel is spent here. At the same time, I have our parks department looking for new revenue.

"You know, the state has been very successful in getting outside advertising for their brochures and such, and I'd like to see us do much the same thing.

"On top of that, we're also going after every grant that we can. We're being very aggressive in that regard."

The supervisor said that in a very real sense, looking to grants to finance various town functions and projects is a direct outgrowth of the downtown revitalization movement of the past several years.

"It really started with Bellmore, which the merchants there are now calling Bellmore Village, and our ability to leverage different funding for various projects has grown exponentially since then.

"We long had our own facade improvement program, but in recent years we really expanded it and one way that we were able to do that was by finding new funds to support it."

Thanks to garnering a number of different kinds of grants -- including everything from community enhancement money from the state to MTA funds -- the Town of Hempstead is currently engaged in revitalization projects in seven communities: Elmont, North Valley Stream, Bellmore, East Meadow, Oceanside, Inwood, and Roosevelt.

Locally, the town is currently working on a facade improvement program on Meacham Avenue, that has been augmented by new sidewalks and street light replacement.