Southeast

The Jefferson County Commission wants to end its investment advisory services contracts and appoint an in-house committee to do the work, according to the Birmingham News.

A firm associated with a former JPMorgan banker being pursued in a Securities and Exchange Commission civil case for alleged pay-to-play charges involving Jefferson County, Ala., was fired on Christmas Eve from a pension consulting job in Florida after Charles LeCroy's legal problems came to light.

Alabama federal Judge Keith Watkins accepted a settlement Monday ending a two-year-old lawsuit involving swaptions between the Alabama Public School and College Authority and JPMorgan.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Lewis Diaz, a bond attorney with Peck, Shaffer & Williams LLP, has been appointed to a three-year term on the finance and administration committee of the Northern Kentucky Area Development District.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum Wednesday announced a $25 million settlement with JPMorgan to resolve allegations that the investment bank improperly sold unregistered securities to the local government investment pool.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The Southwest Florida Expressway Authority had the potential to issue hundreds of millions in bonds for a toll-road project that was once estimated to cost nearly $1 billion.

Tax-exempt toll revenue bonds and public-private partnerships may be used to finance the $4.1 billion Louisville-Southern Indiana Ohio River Bridges Project.

For the second year in a row, Moody's Investors Service has downgraded DeKalb County, Ga.'s general obligation rating because of pressured financial operations and the near-term challenge of restoring the general fund balance to levels consistent with a higher rating level.

BRADENTON, Fla. — After struggling against Alabama Democrats much of his eight years in office, outgoing Republican Gov. Bob Riley finally won passage of bills strengthening ethics and curbing corruption among politicians in the state.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Tennessee has instituted some of the strictest guidelines ever imposed for issuing municipal debt by establishing a model requiring that all ­issuers adopt debt-management policies by Jan. 1, 2012.