Southeast

The South Carolina state Senate on Wednesday approved a road bill that would dedicate $400 million a year of recurring revenue to highway upgrades without raising the state’s gasoline tax.

For the first time in five years, Florida lawmakers have included bond financing for school projects in their proposed $82.35 billion budget for fiscal 2017.

After a special three-week session ended, Louisiana legislators remained $30 million shy of closing the current-year deficit and $800 million short for fiscal 2017.

Local and state government leaders are tapping sales taxes for new revenue to help close budget gaps, pay for infrastructure, fund pension liabilities, and finance basics such as teachers’ raises.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Monday that lawmakers had failed to make the budget cuts to close this year’s deficit.

The lack of progress in funding Kentucky’s pensions led Standard & Poor's Friday to cut the Kentucky Turnpike Authority’s bonds to AA-minus from AA ahead of a $216 million sale.

The trustee for Port St. Lucie, Fla.’s $64 million of bonds to finance the defunct Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute questioned whether the city will honor its guarantee to pay debt service, although the city attorney said it will make good on the promise.

An investment banker hired as an expert witness in lawsuits challenging All Aboard Florida’s passenger train service said tax-exempt financing is critical to funding the $3.5 billion project, although the private company says that’s not true.

Veteran banker Gavin Murrey will work alongside Rob Baird, who is the current head of Public Finance/Debt Investment Banking at Raymond James.

A divided Louisiana Legislature has balked at some measures aimed at pulling the state out of a $940 million current-year deficit.