Marc Joffe

Some industry observers still question the need for machine-readable municipal disclosure.

New York State’s public sector entities have more than $300 billion of unfunded other post-employment benefit liabilities, which accounts for a quarter of the nation’s total of $1.2 trillion of other post-employment benefit debt.

A Fed takeover of municipal lending is a weighty policy decision fraught with dangers that should not be inadvertently or capriciously back-doored into existence during a pandemic.

Public finance has changed a lot since the Great Depression, so a repeat of that era’s default experience is not preordained even if this contraction matches the worst predictions.

But EMMA will ultimately have to drill into disclosures to provide full transparency

Taxpayers, public employees and federal oversight agencies are among the constituencies that want to monitor a municipal bond issuer’s financial performance.