Bonds

The Illinois state comptroller reported a 55% year-over-year increase in the end-of-year general revenue fund cash balance as her office paid the state’s bills in a timely manner, a departure from recent years when the state’s unpaid bill backlogs topped $10 billion. Illinois ended the fiscal year with a $1.7 billion balance in the general

States continue to chip away at income taxes by lowering rates or adopting tax credits, with Arkansas and Kansas enacting reductions last month that will reduce collections by hundreds of millions of dollars in fiscal 2025. But the overall trend of large tax cuts, which reached a peak in 2022, has slowed considerably, according to

Davis Polk has hired infrastructure finance lawyer Elena Millerman to join the firm in New York as a co-leader as it builds out its infrastructure practice. Millerman joins as partner and co-head of the infrastructure finance group. She was previously at White & Case LLP, where most recently she served as the global head of

As California grapples with tax revenue shortfalls that threaten his state policy ambitions, Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered an unusual State of the State speech that critics said barely touched on the state’s challenges. Thea pre-recorded speech released Tuesday focused on national politics over state policy. The speech came after the governor and the legislature’s leaders,

The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has advanced the Water Resources Development Act of 2024, a biennial bipartisan bill that funds the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, invests in ports harbors and inland waterways and advances some of President Biden’s key environmental and resiliency goals. “As the Committee advances the Water Resources Development Act

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen called a special legislative session, starting on July 25, to try to win lawmakers’ support for his property tax reform plan.  The plan involves funding Nebraska’s K-12 schools through sales taxes — eliminating certain sales tax exemptions and raising taxes on advertising, cigarettes, vaping products and alcohol — rather than through

Some horse-trading occurred on two initiatives Tuesday as the California governor reached deals to pull them from the ballot if he signed off on legislation that would resolve the issues. Gov. Gavin Newsom has until Sunday to sign the budget, which has resulted in some 11th hour changes, leading up to the deadline, even though

Kansas will greatly expand its sales and tax revenue bond program in an effort to entice the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs and the Kansas City Royals of Major League Baseball to move across the border from Missouri, under legislation Gov. Laura Kelly signed into law on Friday. During a special legislative session just three days

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors. Transcription: Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio for the authoritative record. Michael Scarchilli (00:05): Hi everyone, and welcome to the Bond Buyer podcast, your go-to source for

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers reached a budget agreement Saturday they say will close multi-year deficits by cutting $16 billion and declaring a statewide fiscal emergency to use reserves. The deal maintains the multi-year fiscal structure proposed in Newsom’s May budget revision to balance the budget in both 2024-25 and 2025-26, based on current

The California Supreme Court removed a sweeping anti-tax measure from the November ballot that the state’s Democrats claimed would have been catastrophic for local government budgets. The high court found the measure to be a far-reaching revision of the state constitution and “because those changes would substantially alter our basic plan of government, the proposal

Hospitals in California may get the extra time some say they need to meet stringent earthquake-safety requirements. As it stands now, hospitals will be forced to close if they haven’t completed the required work by a 2030 deadline under a state law originally crafted following the 1994 Northridge earthquake. “Almost two-thirds of the hospitals in

Utah lawmakers on Wednesday amended a law aimed at keeping the state’s largest coal-fired power plant in operation to ease concerns raised by the Intermountain Power Agency (IPA).   House Bill 3004, which passed both chambers during a special session, makes changes to legislation signed into law by Gov. Spencer Cox in March that requires IPA

Under Republican leadership, Louisiana has joined the red state battle against environmental, social and governance policies with the country’s latest state-level law that bans doing business with corporations, including bond underwriters, deemed to be unfriendly to the gun industry. Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican who took office in January, has long advocated against ESG issues

The Arizona Legislature wrapped up its session Saturday, passing legislation to mitigate the impact of a $329 million property tax refund to be paid by Maricopa County governments and school districts, as well as a fiscal 2025 budget that tackles a two-year deficit. The refunds resulted from a stipulated judgment issued in February for class-action

Transit agencies across the country are being forced to deal with new trends in ridership, new travel patterns, and dwindling federal funds from pandemic- related relief that make the next few years crucial for bringing our nation’s transit system into the new world. That was the takeaway from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said she still sees inflation risks as tilted to the upside despite welcome news in the latest data. Mester, speaking in print and television interviews Friday at Bloomberg’s New York office, also said the median projection of policymakers’ latest forecasts — which signaled just one interest-rate cut

The country’s largest public pension fund came under fire Wednesday from House Republicans, who accused the fund of being part of a “climate cartel” that illegally colludes with other investors to try to force companies to reduce their carbon footprint. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System was one of four witnesses called by the Republican

Municipals traded stronger across the yield curve Wednesday, following an early rally in U.S. Treasuries after inflation data came in softer than anticipated. While Treasuries pared back some of those gains after the Federal Reserve held rates steady and the post-meeting statement signaled only one rate cut may come this year and spoke of “modest”

The U.S. Virgin Islands government has hired Ernst & Young to assist financially troubled Water and Power Authority in returning to fiscal health. Earlier this year the Virgin Islands Senate directed hiring a “turnaround company” for the utility and last week the Public Finance Authority selected E&Y from the four finalists. Within 120 days EY