Washington

The latest round of TIGER grant funding will disburse nearly $500 million to 47 projects in 34 states and the District of Columbia, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Friday. The Department of Transportation received 703 applications from all 50 states, U.S. territories, and D.C. The awards ranged from $1 million to $21.6 million.

A struggling public arena in Wenatchee, Wash., hired Piper Jaffray to underwrite its upcoming refinancing of $42 million of outstanding defaulted debt. The firm had handled the previous deal that ran into trouble.

The IRS is auditing $105 million of general obligation building bonds that North Las Vegas issued in 2006.

The gap between many states' pension and health care benefit commitments and the money set aside to meet them is growing wider, representing a continuing and growing threat to their financial stability and creditworthiness, according to a new report from the Pew Center on the States.

Additional regulation of money-market mutual funds could increase short-term borrowing costs for state and local governments, leading municipalities to raise taxes or cut spending on infrastructure and other critical projects, according to a paper released Monday by a Georgetown University professor.

The Internal Revenue Service has closed an audit without changing the tax-exempt status of $219.22 million of bonds that were issued by the curators of the University of Missouri in 2006.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ordered five firms — Neuberger Berman, Lawson Financial, Edward D. Jones, Estrada Hinojosa and UVEST Financial — to pay a total of nearly $120,000 in fines and restitution for violations of municipal securities rules.

FINRA will soon begin examining underwriters of municipal bonds to see if they can show they have carried out disclosure due-diligence obligations like those in a risk alert the SEC issued in March, a senior official said.

CHICAGO — Bond lawyers are beginning to require that underwriters sit down with members of the issuer’s finance team to discuss how they determined the issue price for the bonds, an IRS official said at a seminar held here on Wednesday.

Executives from Fitch Ratings responded to issuer concerns, saying their agency does not require municipal bond issuers to sign indemnity agreements releasing Fitch from liabilities resulting from ratings.

WASHINGTON — The push for Congress to pass long-term highway funding legislation is reaching a fever pitch two weeks before the current law expires, as Sen. Barbara Boxer led a rally Wednesday urging approval of her two-year transportation bill in time to avoid another extension.

As GASB prepares to vote on new standards for public pension fund accounting that would shed light on unfunded liabilities, a recently formed state and local task force is developing guidance to keep governments focused on their annual required contributions.

States' fiscal conditions are improving and, despite ongoing uncertainties, many of them can be expected to maintain good credit ratings and to try to lock in low interest rates with additional bond financings, officials of two groups said Tuesday.

CHICAGO — Ongoing turmoil in financial markets and historically low interest rates have led institutional investors to increase scrutiny of issuers’ disclosure documents, an insurance company investment officer said at the Government Finance Officers Association annual meeting.

CHICAGO — Government Finance Officers Association debt committee members on Sunday urged municipal issuers to consider disclosing information about their bank loans online on EMMA in the wake of a Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board notice requesting such information.

The IRS will begin limited-scope examinations of bond anticipation notes in July and then examinations of filed 8038-T forms on arbitrage rebate, an IRS official said.

WASHINGTON — Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus said Monday that he plans to meet with committee members this week to discuss extending expired and expiring tax provisions “without any games.”

A federal judge rejected a request by the U.S. Justice Department to use sections of certain audio files as evidence in the upcoming bid-rigging trial against former UBS Financial Services bankers Peter Ghavami, Gary Heinz and Michael Welty.