Far West

Sharon Zackula has joined the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board as an associate general counsel.

The California legislature’s approval of a new rainy day fund measure is a credit positive, according to Moody's Investors Service.

State and local officials are worried that small issuers of municipal bonds will be disproportionately exposed to the risk of enforcement action under the Securities and Exchange Commission's continuing self-reporting program on disclosure failures, and plan to pressure the commission to extend the initiative's deadline beyond its current Sept. 10 date and offer more guidance.

Kent Hiteshew, the director of the Treasury Department's new office of state and local finance, described the office's initial areas of focus and asked municipal government finance officials to provide input about how the office could be helpful.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association will help large issuers of municipal bonds pressure the Securities and Exchange Commission for a sophisticated issuer exemption from its municipal advisor rule, and will also request another delay in the rule's effective date if more guidance is not available soon.

Fitch Ratings upgraded to BBB $71.3 million in revenue bonds issued by the Hawaii Department of Budget & Finance for a 392-unit retirement community and revised the outlook to stable from positive.

The state of Oregon is planning to sell $68 million of tax-exempt and taxable bonds next week to finance capital projects at state universities.

The Government Finance Officers Association has released model language for issuer officials to use when interracting with broker-dealers and other entities under the municipal advisor rule.

The confirmation hearing to determine if Stockton can emerge from bankruptcy will go into a fifth day, on June 4, to allow more time to hear arguments, according to the case judge.

The District of Columbia will become the first jurisdiction in the United States to implement a social impact bond to finance services aimed at reducing teen pregnancy and increasing high schoolers' educational attainment, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray's budget and finance office said.