It couldn’t come at a worse time.  The 53 Gulf Coast counties in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas look forward to peak summer months when tourists flock to beach resorts, casinos and summer homes.  This year the tourists are staying away.  Revenues related to tourist spending and waterfront development projects are likely to drop.  The [...]

Florida, municipal bonds, oil spill

The Grand Jury of San Diego issued a report of this title yesterday.  Also, at yesterday’s GFOA (Government Finance Officers Association) business meeting, the group voted  that the Government Accounting Standards Board should stay away from the topic of sustainability.  The only conclusion one can draw from the Grand Jury report is: the city of [...]

California, Chapter 9, fiscal emergency, municipal bankruptcy, municipal bond default, state and local politics

June 1st marks the beginning of hurricane season.  It’s been quiet for a few years but forecasters are predicting a more active 2010 season.  Here are a few thoughts for analyzing the links to municipal bonds.  Gray and Klotzbacher of Colorado State University operate the Tropical Meteorology Project believe that 2010 will be a “significantly [...]

Florida, municipal bonds

See this post on Reuters for discussion about Antioch, latest city in California to talk bankruptcy.  There is a bill, sponsored by state senator Mendoza, AB155, that would require cities to go through the state (via the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission, CDIAC).  The bill was referred last week by the Senate appropriations committee [...]

California, fiscal emergency, municipal bankruptcy, municipal bonds

Why is the municipal market selling at such a premium?  I have been asked this question several times in the last few weeks — not by career municipal analysts at mutual funds or rating agencies, but sophisticated investors who are trying to make sense of the asset class.  The counterpoint is coming from writers forecasting [...]

municipal bonds

See today’s op ed by Dan Miller, Harrisburg’s controller.

Chapter 9, fiscal emergency, municipal bankruptcy

The Illinois Comptroller’s April report  is scary reading.  The state is $4.5 billion in arrears on payments to vendors and others (like school districts and service providers) with no end in sight.  The Comptroller expects 2011 to be worse.  The following chart from the report looks to me like a deteriorating structural imbalance moving towards a delicate liquidity [...]

fiscal emergency, fiscal stress, state and local politics, states

I read this news story with a “ho hum” since their debt is to the county until I saw that they have $10 million utility debt that they are trying to reduce with a Chapter 9 filing?  Iowa is one of those states that explicitly prohibits Chapter 9, so I am not sure where these [...]

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Add Xenia Rural Water District’s to the short but growing list of over-leveraged municipal borrowers.  With $143 million in debt and about 9,000 customers, the unfolding socio-gram includes bondholders, bond insurers CIFG and Assured Guaranty, the US Department of Agriculture, Bank of America, and last, but not least, the ratepayers.  A $5.2 million note to [...]

bond insurance, fiscal emergency, municipal bond default, non-rated bonds, special district

As this article from the Tax Foundation states, you can’t make this stuff up…

direct democracy, states