Northeast

Newark, N.J., officials are considering selling certain properties to the Essex County Improvement Authority in a lease-back arrangement to help balance the fiscal 2010 budget.

The New Jersey Treasury Department received 12 responses from financial advisers to a request for proposals as the state looks to defease outstanding general obligation bonds.

Local issuers in New York will be able to sell deficit notes to make up for revenue shortfalls under legislation signed into state law earlier this month.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission are in disagreement over payments the turnpike makes to PennDOT under Act 44.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service has told the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency that if it wants to settle a bond-related tax dispute, the settlement will have to cover all $700 million of its outstanding student loan debt.

Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell Monday proposed implementing a profits tax on oil companies and raising motor vehicle fees to generate more than $1 billion per year to help finance road, bridge, and mass transit needs throughout the state.

New Hampshire Wednesday plans to issue $150 million of tax-exempt general obligation bonds via competitive bid in the state’s annual new-money sale.

Extraordinary state oversight imposed on Newburgh, N.Y., prompted Moody's Investors Service on Friday to take the fiscally challenged city off watchlist for possible downgrade.

When Massachusetts issued its first-ever taxable general obligation Build America Bond deal in December it did so in a negotiated transaction and paid a premium to Treasuries of 120 basis points for 30-year debt.

New York's 115 industrial development agencies are failing to provide promised jobs while costing the state and local governments tax revenue, two advocacy groups said in a joint report last week.