Far West

LOS ANGELES — Riverside County, Calif.'s financial advisor doesn't expect the county's recent one-notch downgrade from Moody's Investors Service to affect its ability to sell $35.5 million in lease revenue bonds Feb. 16.

San Diego officials are plowing ahead with plans to expand the city's convention center in a project that will require more than half a billion dollars of bonds.

The Oregon Office of Economic Analysis said in a report released Wednesday that projected general fund and lottery revenues have been lowered by $35.1 million from the December forecast.

The California Housing Finance Agency has revised a policy that resulted in it foreclosing on homeowners who were current on payments but had been renting out homes financed through the agency. The policy went into effect Monday.

The deficit for Los Angeles Unified School District has grown to $557 million and the district faces layoffs of up to 7,500 employees if it doesn’t receive money from three funding sources, officials said.

Ontario, Calif., officials now say that the $50 million payment they offered to Los Angeles for LA/Ontario International Airport was only part of a $250 million package the city offered to transfer title and operations of its airport, according to published reports.

California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office Monday pointed out concerns it had with Gov. Jerry Brown’s backup budget plan should his tax referendum fail this November.

While members of Congress have been loathe to take the politically unpopular step of raising the federal gas tax, which provides revenue for bond-financed roadwork and other highway projects, a number of states have increased their gas taxes during the past few years.

SAN FRANCISCO — California-based AGFS and Government Financial Strategies have merged their financial advisory practices in what they describe as a melding of shared industry values.

WASHINGTON — As part of its initiative to gauge compliance with arbitrage requirements, the Internal Revenue Service is auditing $43.45 million of Series 2006 general obligation refunding bonds that were issued by the St. Vrain Valley, Colo., School District in April 2006 to advance refund its Series 1997 bonds.