Shelly Sigo

After a special three-week session ended, Louisiana legislators remained $30 million shy of closing the current-year deficit and $800 million short for fiscal 2017.

Local and state government leaders are tapping sales taxes for new revenue to help close budget gaps, pay for infrastructure, fund pension liabilities, and finance basics such as teachers’ raises.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Monday that lawmakers had failed to make the budget cuts to close this year’s deficit.

The lack of progress in funding Kentucky’s pensions led Standard & Poor's Friday to cut the Kentucky Turnpike Authority’s bonds to AA-minus from AA ahead of a $216 million sale.

The trustee for Port St. Lucie, Fla.’s $64 million of bonds to finance the defunct Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute questioned whether the city will honor its guarantee to pay debt service, although the city attorney said it will make good on the promise.

An investment banker hired as an expert witness in lawsuits challenging All Aboard Florida’s passenger train service said tax-exempt financing is critical to funding the $3.5 billion project, although the private company says that’s not true.

Veteran banker Gavin Murrey will work alongside Rob Baird, who is the current head of Public Finance/Debt Investment Banking at Raymond James.

A divided Louisiana Legislature has balked at some measures aimed at pulling the state out of a $940 million current-year deficit.

Florida lawmakers are close to an agreement that would establish a new bond financing program that allows certain municipal utilities to securitize customer charges.

The North Broward Hospital District in Florida saw Moody’s Investors Service drop its bond ratings three notches to Baa2 amid a severe decline in revenue and new probes into its operations.

Improvement in Atlanta’s fiscal health led Moody's Investors Service to upgrade the city’s general obligation debt to Aa1 from Aa2.

The Kentucky State Property and Buildings Commission plans to price $663.5 million of new and advance refunding bonds Tuesday, starting with a retail order period.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded Louisiana’s credit ratings by one notch, impacting $7.3 billion of debt; the state’s general obligation bonds were dropped to Aa3 from Aa2 amid the state’s fiscal crisis.

The South Carolina-based law firm of Pope Flynn has hired Tom Havener as a public finance tax attorney, the firm announced Tuesday.

In the Southeast, pent-up need for capital and low interest rates translated into a five-year high for bond issuance in 2015.

Eight Louisiana universities face budget cuts amid the state's fiscal crisis, prompting Moody's Investors Service to place the institutions on review for possible downgrade.

Hunton & Williams LLP has hired David Horner as a partner to work in the firm's infrastructure public-private partnerships practice.

The Securities and Exchange Commission told Miami, Miami-Dade County, and the Marlins that no enforcement action will be recommended after a four-year-long inquiry into the financing of the team's $615.7 million stadium.

The Nelson County Public Library District in Kentucky plans to competitively price $1.6 million of general obligation refunding bonds on Tuesday.

Jefferson County, Ala.'s bankruptcy appeal is expected to be argued before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta the week of May 16.