Bonds

Pennsylvania became the final state in the country to pass its 2024-2025 budget last week, as the commonwealth’s divided legislature wrapped up its $47.6 billion spending plan two weeks past its July 1 deadline, with several new initiatives.  The budget spends big on economic development and education, but provides only one-time funding for transit. And

U.S. states are expected to cut their budgets, marking a return to more modest levels of spending after years of stimulus-fueled growth and tax cuts.  Total general-fund spending is expected to fall to $1.2 trillion in fiscal 2025, according to an analysis by the The Pew Charitable Trusts. That’s a roughly 6% decline from estimates of

Hurricane Beryl’s battering of parts of Texas is not deterring next week’s bond pricing for Galveston Wharves. The port said the $160 million revenue bond sale will proceed on Tuesday despite an operational interruption caused by the once-Category 5 storm that ravaged the Caribbean and made landfall Monday 100 miles south of Galveston in Matagorda

Hamilton County, Tennessee, has taken steps to approve two bonds totaling $630 million. County commissioners gave preliminary approval to $260 million of general obligation bonds the county will issue for Hamilton County Schools and final approval to a $370 million bond for Erlanger Health System. The proposed school bond is to be advertised so residents

The state-managed earthquake insurer for homeowners in California is borrowing in the public debt markets in lieu of paying for additional coverage that would shield it against risks. The California Earthquake Authority plans to price $250 million of short-term debt Tuesday, according to an online investor presentation. The notes, maturing in November, are backed by

The Biden administration awarded $504 million in grants last week to a dozen tech hubs across the country to scale up the production of critical technologies and create jobs in innovative industries. The tech hubs are part of a push by the administration to accelerate domestic growth in industries such as biomanufacturing, clean energy, artificial

California’s presidential election ballot in November will include $20 billion dollars of statewide bond measures, with $20 billion more in one regional bond election. At the state level, lawmakers reached agreements last week on two $10 billion general obligation bond measures that were heading toward approval in floor votes this week. The measures were put

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