Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Beth Hammack said that while progress on lowering inflation had resumed in recent months, officials aren’t yet ready to declare their mission accomplished.  “We have made good progress, but inflation is still running above the FOMC’s 2% objective,” Hammack said Thursday, referring to the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee.

State and local governments in the West, Southwest and Southeast are leading the pack in economic growth as some analysts are seeing good times for the municipal bond market.  “We’ve had $40 billion monthly in new issue calendars for the last seven months in 2024,” said Tom Schuette, senior vice president and investment grade credit

Oklahoma would open the door to the creation of bond-issuing public infrastructure districts if voters approve a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 5 statewide ballot. State question 833 would allow property owners to petition their municipality to create a PID as a way to finance roads, sidewalks, parks, and water and sewer services through the

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.  Mike Scarchilli (00:04): Hi everyone and welcome to The Bond Buyer Podcast, your essential resource for insights into everything municipal finance. I’m Mike Scarchilli, Editor-in-Chief of The Bond

Housing advocates are pressing the House Committee on Ways and Means to pass long-simmering legislation that includes expanding the use of Private Activity Bonds to support affordable housing efforts.   “We remain hopeful there will be legislation in the lame duck session of Congress to enact these sorely-needed proposals, which would increase the housing credit allocation

California federal and state lawmakers broke ground for a 750-acre project to restore the Salton Sea that received $250 million from the federal Inflation Reduction Act. The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly salt lake in Riverside and Imperial counties in southern California near the Mexican border. Funding for a series of projects, including

Utah’s Intermountain Power Agency (IPA) will wrap up financing for its transition to cleaner fuels with a $114.6 million power supply revenue bond sale next week.  The deal comes after state lawmakers in June amended a 2024 law to keep Utah’s largest coal-fired power plant in operation to address IPA’s concerns it would put nearly

Florida continues to work to reduce its debt load, offering a tender to holders of $1.4 billion of bonds, nearly 10% of its par outstanding, using its own cash without the sale of refunding bonds. Issuers have turned to tenders since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 eliminated the tax-exempt advanced refunding option.

A Utah judge voided a proposed constitutional amendment on the Nov. 5 statewide ballot that raised concerns about future state funding for K-12 public schools. If passed by voters, Amendment A would have provided more flexibility for Utah’s budget by tapping excess income tax revenue currently constitutionally earmarked mainly for public education. Utah Third District

The Biden administration Tuesday announced the strictest-ever safe drinking water rule that will require almost all cities to replace their toxic lead pipes within the next 10 years. “Folks, what is a government for if it cannot protect the public health?” Biden asked a crowd Tuesday in Milwaukee, where he announced the rule. The  Lead

Marin General Hospital’s outlook was revised to positive from stable by Fitch Ratings, affecting $211 million in debt. The positive outlook reflects Fitch’s opinion the Greenbrae, California-based facility should continue to make additional progress over the next 12 months-24 months in improving efficiency and other operational measures, according to Monday’s ratings report. Those improvements are