Texas

Texas voters approved $8.7 billion of the $9.1 billion of bonds on local ballots, according to the latest tabulations.

A property tax cut approved by Texas voters Nov. 3 will lower school funding by about $1.2 billion over two years, but credit ratings should not be affected, Fitch Ratings says.

A decline in Texas school district revenue streams of approximately $1.2 billion per biennium should not affect their bond ratings, Fitch Ratings says.

Blaming rising pension costs, two rating agencies have downgraded Dallas' general obligation rating as the city prepares to issue $227 million of bonds.

In another sign of Texas' faltering energy economy, sales tax revenue for October fell 5.4%, according to Comptroller Glenn Hegar.

Texas voters approved a new transportation funding formula that could provide $2.5 billion for highways, but the money will not start flowing right away.

Voters in Texas will decide $9.1 billion of local bond proposals and a statewide constitutional amendment to divert $2.5 billion of sales tax revenue to transportation.

The IAH Public Facility Corp.' $49 million of bonds for a jail in Polk County, Texas, are one of a number of issues that have been audited by the IRS, which has claimed jail bonds are taxable private activity bonds.

Investment banking firm Rice Financial Products Co. has hired seven people to bolster its sales and trading operations and expand its footprint in California, Illinois, Texas and New York.

San Antonio’s CPS Energy, one of the nation’s largest public power utilities, plans to price about $435 million of bonds in its only new money deal of the year.

First Southwest Co., the top financial advisor in the Southwest region, expects to be fully combined with the former Southwest Securities under the name Hilltop Securities by January.

An upgrade from Standard & Poor’s and a triple-A guarantee from the Texas Permanent School Fund will enhance the appeal of Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District’s $344 million of general obligation bonds.

Economic study says privately financed Texas bullet train could generate billions of tax dollars for state and local governments.

With its first $810 million bond issue for a new water development program known as SWIFT, the Texas Water Development Board expects to save local utilities more than $106 million in borrowing cost.

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar lowered estimates for the state’s revenue over the next two years by about 2.3%, citing a slowdown in the state’s oil and gas economy.

The first issue of bonds for Texas’ newly authorized water development projects were oversubscribed by more than two times as institutional and retail investors gulped down the top-rated credit.

Texas sales tax revenues in September rose 1.9% over the same month last year, but distributions to local governments fell, Comptroller Glenn Hegar reported.

Strong growth in traffic prompts a Moody’s Investors Service upgrade on Harris County Toll Road Authority’s senior revenue bonds.

Despite a series of high-profile defaults that left Texas counties in possession of abandoned jails, local governments continue to issue debt for privately operated lockups.

Bondholders would get 40 cents on the dollar for $23 million of bonds outstanding for a detention facility in South Texas that defaulted on its debt, according to a notice on the Municipals Securities Rulemaking Board’s EMMA Web site.