Washington

Seattle and King County leaders voted in favor of a memorandum of understanding to build a pro sports arena in the city's southern downtown area using $200 million of bonds.

Robert Henn, acting director of the Internal Revenue Service's tax-exempt bond office, will retire from the agency at the end of the year.

Jeanine Rodgers Caruso, president of Fiscal Advisors & Marketing Inc., is the new board president of the National Association of Independent Public Finance Advisors

The Securities and Exchange Commission hopes to finalize its definition of municipal advisor early next year, according to the head of the SEC's municipal securities office.

The District of Columbia will sell $900 million of income tax-secured bonds in November, the biggest amongst a rash of deals closing the calendar year.

Slide show of Puerto Rico Public Private Partnerships P3s

Middle-market, fixed-income dealer firms are adding staffers to their compliance divisions, part of an expensive effort to comply with a host of new financial regulations coming from Washington, D.C., some executives said at a meeting here.

Moody’s affirmed its underlying Aaa rating for Bellevue School District, Wash.'s $557 million of general obligation debt.

Washington's revenues collections saw a slight increase in September compared to the state’s June forecast.

Rep. Mike Coffman, R- Colo., has introduced legislation that would allow governmental and 501(c)(3) nonprofit bonds to be refunded a second time so that issuers and borrowers could save money by taking advantage of low interest rates.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of Municipal Securities began reporting to SEC chairman Mary Schapiro as of Sept. 24, an attorney in the muni office said Thursday.

States have been operating in fiscal year 2013 for three months already and tax growth is expected to rise in between 1% and 4.9% in nearly three-quarters of the states for the third consecutive year, according to a new report.

Fluctuating fuel prices and a reluctance to raise on customers in a down economy could put pressure on public utilities credits in the near future, analysts from the three major credit agencies warn.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit heard oral arguments Tuesday in the case of Corr V. Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, a lawsuit that strikes at MWAA's primary mechanism of repaying more than $2 billion of bond debt.

The District of Columbia will sell $700 million of general obligation notes Oct. 11, part of a flurry of borrowing activity to close the calendar year.

Muni dealers should consider advising customers that issuers of Build America Bonds may have the option to call those bonds starting Jan. 2 if budget cuts due to sequestration take effect.

Proposed rules aimed at increasing protection for retail investors who trade munis online would impose undue costs and administrative burdens on muni dealers, industry participants say.

The investment holdings of the 100 largest state and local public pension systems fell 1.5% from $2.76 trillion to $2.72 trillion in the second quarter of 2012, according to a U.S. Census Bureau survey released Thursday.

The district of Columbia's quarterly capital expenditures report showed that the district spent $689.3 million on capital projects in fiscal 2012, and debt financing was down about $62 million from the same point is fiscal 2011.