Washington

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced Thursday that it has fined Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC $1 million and ordered the company to pay $188,000 in restitution plus interest for violations of municipal and corporate bond rules.

A weak financial report released by Providence Health & Services, Wash., will not affect its debt rating and outlook, said analysts at Standard & Poor's.

Moody's Investors Service has revised its outlook for the U.S. states sector to stable from negative, while the outlook for local governments remains negative.

The Internal Revenue Service sent an updated Form 5701 Notice of Proposed Issue to Florida's Village Center Community Development District this week with regard to it not being a political subdivision for tax-exempt financing purposes.

Six months after Zapata County, Texas received notification from the Internal Revenue Service, that $9.97 million of their bonds were being audited, the county is working to resolve the tax law dispute and may end up paying a settlement or refunding its bonds.

Officials overseeing bankrupt JeffCo get a lesson in "disclosure responsibilities" from disclosure expert John McNally, a partner at Hawkins, Delafield, & Wood.

Congress should establish a national infrastructure bank and offset the appropriation for it with revenue from a one-time repatriation tax holiday, the Brookings Institution urged in a report released Thursday.

Issuers, non-dealer municipal advisors, and financial reform advocates are upset that the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board' "public members" continue to have close ties to dealer firms, complaining this undermines the Dodd-Frank Act intent that the board be majority public.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $69.83 million of sales tax revenue refunding bonds issued by the Regional Transportation District in Colorado in 2007.

A proposed utility tax increase that will be voted on in November is a credit neutral for Tacoma Power, Moody's Investors Service said.

Sales of municipal bonds in the Far West region grew by almost 11% during the first half of 2013 compared to a year earlier as low rates continued to drive volume.

State revenues jumped 5.3% in 2013, but officials are worried that a slowdown next year is imminent, a National Conference of State Legislatures report said.

The University of Washington is planning to sell $143 million of general revenue bonds next week to finance various capital improvements, including the renovation of the Husky Stadium.

Seeking to avoid the implementation of further continuing disclosure regulations, the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers, and Treasurers has released new best practices urging state governments to voluntarily disclose nearly all financial and economic data.

Moody's Investors Service is considering changing how it rates local government general obligation bonds to increase the weight of its analysis for debt and pension liabilities, it announced Wednesday.

The District of Columbia will issue $99.43 million of tax-exempt revenue bonds for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund to finance construction of a new museum.

The National Association of Bond Lawyers has announced a slate of officer and director nominees the group will vote on at NABL's annual meeting Sept. 25 in Chicago.

Baptist Health South Florida Obligated Group has agreed to pay $597,751 to settle Internal Revenue Service alleged tax rule violations and preserve the tax-exempt status of $800 million of hospital revenue bonds issued in 2007.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has released a continuing disclosure guide providing issuers with a road map of their obligations under MSRB rules, citing a slew of recent federal enforcement actions in which issuers sometimes failed to file the required information.