Washington

The PFM Group announced Thursday that it has acquired an advisory firm in Washington State as part of its continued expansion in the Northwest region.

Public-private partnership, a financing model that has started to spread across the U.S., may face some challenges as Congress debates limits on the federal role in infrastructure, according to Simon Santiago, leader of Nossaman LLP's east coast infrastructure practice.

The Internal Revenue Service's Tax Exempt Bond Office published an educational paper summarizing processes to help issuers comply with federal tax law requirements and the voluntary closing agreement program provisions.

The American Road and Transportation Builders Alliance will focus on a potentially trend-setting challenge to a prominent Virginia public-private partnership at the group's annual conference July 24-26.

Former President Bill Clinton strongly urged Washington Tuesday to pass a national infrastructure bank bill and encouraged state and local governments to embrace more public-private partnerships.

If a budget is not passed soon, Washington State agencies face shutdowns and employees face temporary layoffs starting July 1.

A Washington, D.C. PACE green energy program completed its first financing, the District Department of the Environment announced.

The sentencing dates of more convicted municipal bond bid-riggers have been pushed back, according to documents filed with the U.S. district Courts for the Southern District of New York and Western District of North Carolina, as prosecutors seek stiffer penalties for price-fixing of investment contracts.

If the tax exemption for municipal bonds had been repealed in 2012, up to 892,000 jobs. $46.9 billion of labor income and $71 billion annually in gross domestic product would have been lost, according to a new U.S. Conference of Mayors report.

Michael Decker's recent letter offers nine criticisms of our report on municipal bond markups. I briefly address his comments in the order they appear so your readers can evaluate his arguments fairly.

Seattle public finance law firm Gottlieb Fisher PLLC, which ranked 55th nationally as bond counsel last year, has joined Hillis Clark Martin & Peterson.

Within the last month at least eight issuers indicated they will likely take advantage of its extraordinary redemption provisions to refund Build America Bonds due to reduced interest subsidy payments triggered by sequestration.

Moody's Investors Service has downgraded to A1 from Aa3 the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority's $5 billion of airport revenue bonds.

Moody's Investors Service said it has revised the outlook on the Port of Seattle's outstanding revenue bonds to negative from stable.

The Internal Revenue Service's adverse ruling about the Village Center Community Development District will not impact other Village CDD bonds that Fitch rates.

Dealer groups said Tuesday that they support Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board proposed rule changes on retail order periods, but non-dealer financial advisors warn issuers can be exploited, with underwriters simply determining for them which "retail" investors can buy the bonds in offerings.

With little fanfare, the Internal Revenue Service has begun requiring issuers of tax credit bonds to file information documents five times a year, adding costs and other burdens to cash-strapped school districts and other small issuers, market sources said this week.

The Highway Trust Fund will need an additional $85 billion in U.S. general fund transfers over the next six years just to keep the program operating despite recent events that have shown that current spending is not enough, a Department of Transportation official told a Senate Panel Thursday.

Higher revenue collections have boosted the short-term outlook for states but the slow economic recovery and stubbornly high unemployment have many states worried that the fiscal improvements may be temporary.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is urging investors and dealers to examine the redemption provisions of Build America Bonds and other direct-pay bonds so they can determine if the bonds' market value could be affected by a redemption stemming from a sequestration-mandated cut in subsidy payments to the issuer.