Far West

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.

SAN FRANCISCO — The University of Washington, a top-notch credit, will hit a supply-constrained municipal debt market Wednesday with $271.3 million of bonds for refinancing and to fund various construction projects.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has drafted an interpretive notice warning underwriters of new bonds that they may violate the fair-dealing rule if they agree to eliminate a reserve fund or take other actions for the new bonds that could hurt existing parity bondholders, without authorization from bond documents.

Standard & Poor's slashed Hercules, Calif.'s revenue bonds five notches, partly as a result of bankruptcy statements by city officials.