Southwest

The Texas Transportation Commission will refund $840.9 million of Central Texas Turnpike System debt; the system was recently lifted into the A category by Standard & Poor’s.

Oral arguments on a suit seeking to overturn last week’s approval of a tax increase for Travis County, Texas’s hospital district are set for this week before U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel.

Voters in Corpus Christi, Texas favored seven of the eight bond proposals on the ballot last week. Total authorization of the seven successful requests will finance almost $88 million of projects.

Neighboring Midland Independent School District and Ector County Independent School District in west Texas won approval last week for the largest GO bond requests in their histories.

The biggest threat to the public infrastructure in Texas is a lack of sustainable funding, the Texas Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers said in its 2012 report card.

Voters in Santa Fe County N.M. gave approval margins of 60% to three GO bond proposals totaling $38 million.

An Arkansas constitutional amendment authorizing STAR bonds in which sales tax revenue bonds would have supported economic development districts failed.

A task force developing a list of projects to be included in Scottsdale, Ariz.'s general obligation 2013 bond request will meet this week to review suggestions proposed by citizens through the city's web site.

Income tax cuts and the demise of a sales tax increase will leave Kansas with a $327 million revenue shortfall in fiscal 2014, the Revenue Estimating Conference said Tuesday.

Webb County, Tex., which includes Laredo on the Texas-Mexico border, earned a Standard & Poor's upgrade to AA from AA-minus in advance of a $21.9 million issue of certificates of obligation.