Far West

Though New Jersey and California are on starkly different credit paths, municipal analysts said their recent trading patterns suggest equally-strong demand.

Moody's Investors Service on Thursday upgraded San Diego County's issuer rating to Aaa and bumped up its lease and pension obligation bond ratings a notch to Aa2.

Personal income taxes and possibly all state taxes appear to be down in the second quarter of this year based on preliminary data, the Rockefeller Institute of Government of the State University of New York said in a report released Thursday.

The Fannin County Public Facility Corp. in Texas has settled tax law violations with the Internal Revenue Service by agreeing to pay $1.75 million and redeem all of the outstanding bonds from the $30.78 million it issued in 2008 to finance a jail.

After months of debate that stretched legislative deadlines, California lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Brown finally agreed on a $7.5 billion water bond measure to put on the November ballot.

The Far West Region mirrored the U.S. with municipal bond sales dropping 24.8% during the first half of 2014 compared to the same period a year earlier.

Changes to California's school pension contribution laws will create budgetary challenges for the state's school districts after 2017, according to Moody's Investors Service.

Congress delayed, but did not fix, a $100 billion hole in federal transportation spending with the enactment last Friday of legislation providing $10.8 billion to extend solvency of the rapidly shrinking Highway Trust Fund by 10 months.

The fate of a California state school facilities bond measure proposal, originally priced at $9 billion, could be decided during a Senate Appropriation Committee hearing on Thursday.

The 114-mile stretch of California's high speed rail project from Fresno to Bakersfield received approval from a federal railway oversight board on Tuesday.