Southeast

BRADENTON, Fla. — The Georgia General Assembly ended its annual session last Thursday after passing a $38.5 billion budget for fiscal 2011 representing a $100 million increase over the current budget.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear is warning that the Legislature’s failure to adopt a budget could lead to a shutdown of government for the first time in the state’s history.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Miami’s former budget director, Michael Boudreaux, on Monday filed a whistleblower lawsuit claiming he was fired for “telling the truth and reporting about malfeasance” by former and current city hall officials.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Two Florida school districts today are closing on the state’s first issuer-subsidy qualified school construction bond deals, which are also the first in the nation to sell as certificates of participation.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Florida lawmakers shortly before midnight Monday reached a compromise on a $70 billion budget for 2011, an increase of $3.5 billion over the current year.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday filed a motion in Alabama federal court announcing that it had reached proposed settlements in the civil securities fraud case against Montgomery bond dealer William Blount and his firm, Blount Parrish & Co., and local lobbyist Al LaPierre.

WASHINGTON — Wake County, N.C., on Wednesday is expected to competitively price $421.7 million of general obligation refunding bonds, its largest refunding deal on record.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The nonprofit Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts Inc. in Palm Beach County, Fla., has paid $320,000 to the Internal Revenue Service to settle a violation of the Internal Revenue Code’s 5% limit on private use in a bond-financed facility.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Birmingham, Ala., plans to use recovery zone economic development bonds in a “creative” way, according to city officials.

BRADENTON, Fla. — When Moody’s Investors Service ­released its first round of rating recalibrations for states Monday, Florida failed in its “gilt-edged” quest to win triple-A scores from all three major rating agencies.