As issuers, local authorities have credit ratings that are used in the search for direct funding from the capital markets. However, some local officials also use their ratings as instruments of local public reporting. Does this function creep affect the public values of local authorities? In line with the theory of publicness (Bozeman, 2007), a measurement of this publicness and the detection of public values (Jorgensen and Bozeman, 2002, 2007) are proposed both for the authorities that expressly mention their rating and those that make no mention of it. A textual analysis of their respective discourses reveals a function creep that conveys a lesser degree of publicness and ‘market’-oriented public values, but also generates one public value: transparency.