Bonds

A pair of top Congressional Republicans Wednesday opened an investigation into the Biden administration’s allocation of billions of federal dollars to California’s ambitious and pricey high-speed train project. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., chair of the the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, sent Transportation

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority plans to come to market Wednesday with $829.4 million of airport system revenue and refunding bonds. “Traditionally, we’re in the market at about the same time every year. We either have a refunding opportunity or a new money need,” said Andrew Rountree, the authority’s senior vice president for finance and CFO.

Colorado’s action to rein in rising property values are negative credit factors for some local governments, while public schools will benefit from a state funding boost, according to Moody’s Ratings.  Legislation signed into law May 14 by Gov. Jared Polis will limit annual property tax revenue growth to 5.5% starting in fiscal 2026 and make

Municipals sold off Wednesday following another weaker U.S. Treasury session while equities were down near the close. Muni yields rose two to 13 basis points, depending on the curve, coming on the tailwind of a market correction, said Brad Libby, a fixed-income portfolio manager and credit analyst at Hartford Funds. Mixed economic data has been

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors. Two California issuers take first and third spots on the list. The Regents of the University of California top the list with $2.875 billion in six deals while Los Angeles Unified School District lands at third with $1.189 billion in two deals.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has issued guidance aimed at helping state and local governments provide additional information to aid certain decision making, assess a government’s accountability and address certain application issues. The 123-page document provides discussion and examples on how the improvements are to work. The guidance builds on Statement 34 released in 1999

The latest Water Resources Development Act, which passed a key Senate committee last week, would for the first time advance a pilot public-private partnership program first proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers a decade ago. The WRDA of 2024 would require the Corps to craft a best-practices guide for P3 projects and report

S&P Global Ratings has revised the outlook on bonds issued for the University of Chicago Medical Center to negative from stable.  The rating agency affirmed its AA-minus long-term rating and underlying rating on the bonds, but said it could lower the rating if UCM fails to raise days’ cash on hand to about 200 days,

Fulcrum BioEnergy, a clean-fuels pioneer that raised more than $1 billion to turn household waste into lower-emitting fuels for planes and trucks, is in danger of going under.  The company, which had issued hundreds of millions of dollars in municipal bonds, recently laid off nearly all of its staff of about 100 and halted most

Separately managed accounts have grown rapidly following the financial crisis, partly buoyed by greater adoption of electronic trading. SMAs may hold as much as $1.5 trillion of munis, according to some market participants, while others peg it closer to $1 trillion to $1.3 trillion. Regardless of the total, this is up exponentially from the $100

The owner of a municipal-bond financed nitrogen fertilizer plant in Lee County, Iowa, is trying to sell the plant to one of its largest competitors, Koch Industries. The Iowa Fertilizer Company plant was built from 2012 to 2017 near the unincorporated community of Wever. Helping to kick off construction were $1.194 billion of tax-exempt private

Dallas would ramp up contributions to its Police and Fire Pension System over five years and could pursue additional funding options, including pension obligation bonds and using a portion of sales taxes earmarked for mass transit, under recommendations presented to a city council committee.  Jack Ireland, Dallas’ chief financial officer, told the Ad Hoc Committee

Munis were little changed to a touch weaker Monday on the heels of last week’s market correction, mostly ignoring U.S. Treasury market moves to higher yields, while equities were mixed late in the session. Munis sold off last week “as the anticipated market correction may have finally started ahead of the summer reinvestment period,” said

A tax measure to shore up funding for the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit district approved by the California Senate Friday could be derailed by local opposition before it hits the 2026 ballot. Senate Bill 1031, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, and Sen. Aisha Wahab, D-Hayward, passed the Senate Friday on a

It may be time to revisit an old but compelling solution to clean up the $4 trillion municipal bond market — state-based bond banks that take over borrowing responsibilities from the thousands of small local governments that dominate the market. That’s the proposal from a pair of high-profile muni market experts: Kent Hiteshew, former director

The Internal Revenue Service has contacted the city of Castroville, Texas informing them of an examination of bond issuances that date back to 2015 and total $15.6 million. “On May 21, 2024, the city received notice, dated May 15, 2024, from the Internal Revenue Service that the service is conducting an examination of the obligations,”

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 (00:05):Hi everyone and welcome to the Bond Buyer Podcast, your go-to source for all things municipal finance. I’m Mike Scarchilli, Editor-in-Chief of the Bond Buyer. And

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis declared “the long wait is over” as he cheered the Biden administration’s action this month to reclassify marijuana in the eyes of the federal government.  The move, which is now in a public comment period, would change marijuana from a Schedule I drug on par with heroin and LSD to Schedule

Municipals took a breather Friday ahead of the long weekend and a much smaller calendar after seeing yields rise and underperform U.S. Treasuries, pushing ratios to levels last seen in November 2023. In addition to “more attractive raw yields, municipal underperformance has allowed relative values to improve as well,” noted Kim Olsan, senior vice president

Harrisburg University of Science and Technology violated its bond covenant at the beginning of the month when it missed a monthly $1.2 million interest payment to the bond trustee. Jessica Warren, Harrisburg University’s executive director of marketing and communications, said the university only needs to make interest payments twice a year on its outstanding bond

The flooding in Vermont last summer illustrates climate change’s impact on U.S. localities and their financial responses. Severe floods that were triggered by several days of heavy rainfall in Vermont left homes washed out and businesses and municipal facilities with severe physical damage. It also left some of the rural communities in the state, which