Alaska

With its income-tax proposal stalled, the Alaska House majority is now moving its oil-tax bill instead, unveiling a new version of the legislation Friday that limits cash subsidies for companies and makes substantial changes to tax rates and credits.

Far West issuers sold $90.7 billion of municipal bonds in 2016, a 8.5% increase over the prior year.

Most of the oil states have gone into recession, S&P Global Ratings said in a new report.

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker's $4.2 billion fiscal year 2018 contains a familiar proposal.

Alaska is unlikely to find another good opportunity to issue pension obligation bonds soon after the last-minute halt of a more than $2 billion sale several days ago, the state’s debt manager said.

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker called off a planned $2.35 billion sale of pension obligation bonds citing a lack of legislative support.

Alaska’s coming $2.3 billion pension obligation bond deal will drive the Frontier State to another downgrade, but neither that or other recent downgrades is seen as an obstacle to the state’s desired pricing.

S&P Global Ratings said it anticipates lowering Alaska’s various credit ratings one notch after the state closes the pension obligation bond deal it plans this month.

Alaska has authorized up to $3.5 billion of pension obligation bonds it hopes to sell in late October, though a broken office-building lease raised one observer's doubts about the state's willingness to stand behind "subject to appropriation" pledges.

Next month Alaska will pay out some $657 million as part of its annual dividend to its citizens, a drastically reduced amount that Gov. Bill Walker is hoping will hammer home the need for significant fiscal reform in the state.