Southwest

Arkansas lawmakers ended a special session Monday with approval of a bill to raise $50 million for highways, allowing the state to receive $200 million in federal funds.

The University of Texas System will issue $215 million of triple-A-rated debt that includes some of the $922 million in tuition revenue bonds authorized by the 2015 Texas Legislature.

Mission Regional Medical Center, in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, suffered a five-notch downgrade to B-minus from Standard & Poor's Global Ratings. The downgrade affects $26.5 million of outstanding debt.

With revenues continuing to fall below forecast, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback reduced spending by $100 million, with cuts to universities, transportation, and Medicaid, among other services.

The Texas Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Texas’ “Byzantine” school funding formula will end three years of litigation but have no immediate impact on state or local school district credits, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

Days after winning voter approval of $155 million of bonds to keep pace with growth, the Anna Independent School District on the outskirts of Dallas took a two-notch downgrade from Moody's Investors Service. Anna was one of dozens of Texas school districts whose voters approved nearly $5 billion of bonds May 7.

The trustee firm in many recent troubled bond deals assembled by accused fraudster Christopher Brogdon is taking a harder line against the former employee it blames for its involvement in the mess.

New Mexico is competitively selling $333 million of severance tax bonds after two downgrades attributed to declining oil and gas revenues.

German Pellets Texas LLC and Texas Pellets Inc. filed petitions for Chapter 11 reorganization last month with $184.7 million of tax-exempt industrial development bonds outstanding.

The Texas Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the state’s school finance system, ending four years of litigation over unequal funding.