Far West

WASHINGTON — Rating analysts are closely watching to see if states make structural changes in their finances to avoid their current fiscal problems as opposed to making one-time fixes that will not solve their underlying imbalances, a Standard & Poor’s analyst said Tuesday.

SAN FRANCISCO — Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber unveiled a balanced budget proposal Tuesday for fiscal years 2012 and 2013 that reduces general-fund supported general obligation bond sales by 80% from the prior biennial spending cycle.

State revenues increased 6.9% in the fourth quarter of 2010, capping a full year of revenue growth and easing concerns that states should be able to file for bankruptcy protection, according to officials at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, which issued a report Tuesday.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — California Gov. Jerry Brown threw down a gauntlet to opponents of his budget proposal during his state of the state address Monday night, when he challenged them to craft alternative solutions for the parts they oppose.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday that investors can for the first time access detailed information that money market funds file with the SEC under changes to Rule 2a-7 that it implemented last year.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — A recent California appeals court ruling will require developers of many community facilities districts to pay so-called prevailing wages for all public improvements, whether or not they are financed with bonds.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $51 million of auction-rate securities that were issued in a conduit deal in 2005 by the Orange County, Fla., Health Facilities Authority to current-refund bonds and finance a hospital project.

WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia expects to issue $81.7 million of federal highway grant anticipation revenue bonds on Wednesday in a deal that was delayed from December at an additional cost to the district of about $2 million.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is exploring state public pension laws to see if there are common types of disclosures they could encourage issuers to submit to its Electronic Municipal Market Access site, MSRB officials told reporters Monday.

SAN FRANCISCO — Union workers are poised to fight a bankruptcy-exit proposal from Vallejo that has the California city paying them as little as 10 cents on the dollar.