Louisiana

Louisiana-based Adam and Reese LLP has promoted partner Tracy Averett Morganti to head the firm's public finance team.

After a special three-week session ended, Louisiana legislators remained $30 million shy of closing the current-year deficit and $800 million short for fiscal 2017.

Local and state government leaders are tapping sales taxes for new revenue to help close budget gaps, pay for infrastructure, fund pension liabilities, and finance basics such as teachers’ raises.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Monday that lawmakers had failed to make the budget cuts to close this year’s deficit.

A divided Louisiana Legislature has balked at some measures aimed at pulling the state out of a $940 million current-year deficit.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded Louisiana’s credit ratings by one notch, impacting $7.3 billion of debt; the state’s general obligation bonds were dropped to Aa3 from Aa2 amid the state’s fiscal crisis.

In the Southeast, pent-up need for capital and low interest rates translated into a five-year high for bond issuance in 2015.

Eight Louisiana universities face budget cuts amid the state's fiscal crisis, prompting Moody's Investors Service to place the institutions on review for possible downgrade.

Louisiana's estimated deficit deepened as state lawmakers began meeting for a special three-week legislative session to deal with the historic budget gap.

In a newspaper column Tuesday, the governor said he would not support budget cuts that could throw universities into financial exigency and close hospitals in order to deal with Louisiana's budget crisis.

The $254.6 million of BANs were directly placed with JPMorgan at a cost of 0.52%, and will "bridge" the state through the next six or seven months, said Louisiana's financial advisor Renee Boicourt.

John Kennedy, the Pelican state's long-time treasurer, announced on his blog Tuesday that he will run for the seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La.

Facing a $2.65 billion budget deficit, newly elected Gov. John Bel Edwards has released a slate of options that he said would deal with the largest budget shortfall Louisiana has ever faced.

Louisiana's budget deficit is a credit negative and it has a narrow window to cure its current-year shortfall, Moody's Investors Service said Monday.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards just after taking the oath of office Monday pledged to repair the state's budget and expand the state's health insurance program.

Louisiana faces a budget deficit of $2.65 billion in fiscal 2016 and 2017 that Gov.-elect John Bel Edwards and Administration Commissioner Jay Dardenne have vowed to fix.

Louisiana needs more robust sources of transportation revenues to restore its highway system, transition panel says.

Louisiana will use a short-term borrowing strategy to avoid disclosure requirements that would be challenging in the midst of a gubernatorial transition.

The way Louisiana addressed a $487 million mid-year deficit with one-time budget cuts exacerbates credit pressures facing the state, Moody's Investors Service said.

Recent actions by Louisiana lawmakers to close a nearly $500 million budget deficit, amid uncertainties that may lead the state to privately place its next borrowing, could to pressure on the state’s credit ratings, according to Fitch Ratings.