Shelly Sigo

Under the guidance of its new finance director, Birmingham is poised to enter the bond market for what may be the first competitive offering in city history.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Florida is on a fast track to complete the first high-speed rail project in the U.S. with a new application for $1.12 billion in funding from the Federal Railroad Administration’s service development program.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The South Florida Water Management District will consider a plan on Thursday to pay cash, instead of using debt, for a scaled-down version of the U.S. Sugar Corp. land purchase for Everglades restoration.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Environmental sustainability. That was the main factor driving the California-based nonprofit RSF Social Finance to invest through its customized fixed-income portfolio in a municipal bond deal from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in March.

The Tennessee State School Bond Authority has approved $212 million in construction loans for 15 school districts.

The Oxford School District in northern Mississippi will ask voters to approve a $30 million general obligation bond issue in a referendum Oct. 26.

Florida last week was among 19 finalists competing for more than $3 billion in the second round of federal education funding in the Race to the Top program. Other finalists from the Southeast region are Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The Miami-Dade County Expressway Authority, after a four-year hiatus, is back in the bond market this week with $345 million of toll-revenue bonds.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Former Jefferson County commissioner Gary White has become the latest of nearly two dozen people and companies in Alabama convicted for corruption involving the county’s debt-clogged sewer system.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions Financial Corp. has hired Cristina Rhodebeck as vice president and senior relationship manager in its Columbia, S.C., corporate trust office.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The Palm Beach County Solid Waste Authority is preparing to launch an $820 million bond financing program for the construction of one of the first waste-to-energy facilities built in the U.S. in many years.

The Georgia Department of Transportation has begun an outreach program to educate voters statewide about Senate Resolution 821, which was approved during the General Assembly’s session earlier this year.

Because Congress has failed to extend federal Medicaid assistance funds, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue last week ordered most state agencies to cut their budgets by 4%. Only the budget supporting K-12 schools was exempt from the cuts.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist last week signed an executive order authorizing property appraisers in 26 counties to provide interim assessments of properties that may have been adversely affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Alabama Building Renovation Finance Authority July 21 successfully priced about $30 million of lease revenue refunding bonds, state officials said.

Outgoing Alabama Attorney General Troy King last week said he has asked a private law firm to begin preparations for suing BP and other firms responsible for the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Faced with a looming deficit and difficult union negotiations, officials in Miami are looking at ways to shore up a nearly $100 million hole in next year’s budget.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The Florida Municipal Loan Council and the city of South Miami have notified investors in the Series 2002A and 2006 pool bonds that they have voluntarily entered the Internal Revenue Service’s compliance program.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Crews this week began geotechnical and survey work on the first phase of Florida’s $2.6 billion high-speed rail project from Tampa to Orlando, which is set to be built in the median of Interstate 4.

Despite polls showing that most Florida residents want a constitutional ban on oil drilling in state waters, the Republican-led Legislature met in special session for less than an hour Tuesday and killed all attempts to put the issue on the ballot in November.