Southwest

DALLAS - The Tomball Hospital Authority near Houston has called or defeased its $111.4 million of tax-exempt bond debt after the sale of the Tomball Regional Medical Center to for-profit Community Health Systems.

DALLAS - With municipal bond volume running about as low as the water levels in its reservoirs, Texas' Lower Colorado River Authority will supply a parched market with $595 million of refunding revenue bonds this week.

Trustees of Arlington Independent School District last week authorized the refunding of $19.5 million of outstanding debt from a 2003 bond issue.

An updated report issued last week by the Texas Water Development Board said it will cost $53 billion over the next 50 years to build the new reservoirs, pipelines, treatment plants and other water infrastructure needed to keep the state from drying up.

New facilities and upgrades financed by the Forth Worth Independent School District’s $593.6 million bond program will benefit students for many years, superintendent Walter Dansby said last week.

Officials of the small town of Mesilla in Dona Ana County, N.M., are considering asking voters to increase the property tax next year to support general obligation bonds for the first time since the municipality was incorporated in 1959.

Colorado State Treasurer Walker Stapleton and Attorney General John Suthers have filed a lawsuit in a Denver state district court to obtain beneficiary information from the board that oversees the pension fund for state workers.

A ruling last week in a Pulaski County Circuit Court stymied efforts by the Arkansas Department of Education to withhold excess property tax revenues from school districts in Carroll and Garland counties.

DALLAS - Two former aides to Texas Gov. Rick Perry now hold top positions at the Texas Department of Transportation after former energy lobbyist and secretary of state Phil Wilson was named the agency's executive director.

DALLAS - Texas' chief revenue estimator told lawmakers Wednesday that revenues probably will not climb much this fiscal year, dimming hopes of avoiding another budget shortfall in two years.