Muni Think

Regardless of which candidate takes the oath of office next January, improving our country’s infrastructure will be on the next president’s agenda.

While Mayor Rahm Emanuel has chipped away at the pension problem, Chicago has come nowhere close to identifying a solution. The city must, at a bare minimum, contribute enough every year, including 2016, to ensure that the plans' funded ratio not drop below, and that their unfunded liabilities not exceed, 2015 levels.

Colorado's economy has shown the strongest improvement among states over the last year. The economies of Maryland, Wisconsin and Florida also continue to show strong improvement, while energy and commodity dependent states continue to show the weakest performance.

The orders provide some insight into what the Securities and Exchange Commission considers to be a material false or misleading statement in an offering document.

Restructuring the debt of Chicago and Illinois would entail about two years of unpleasant headlines, but the city and the state will rebound far sooner and less painfully than if they stay on their current paths.

The Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation Initiative was a particularly imaginative enforcement solution directed toward a very specific disclosure issue.

Attempts to boil down state government fiscal performance into bite size chunks can be Quixotic exercises, fraught with data problems and ripe for misinterpretation.

Puerto Rico's addiction to debt is not unlike that of an abuser to alcohol or drugs, so perhaps it is time for Puerto Rico to undertake a 12-Step Program, aided by the new financial control board.

While there is something wild about callable premium bonds, fortunately there may be a way to tame them.

Underhanded pay-to-play practices may come back in play.