News and Information from Bond Buyer

Proposals to require colleges and universities to meet standards in areas such as graduation rates and students' abilities to repay loans in order to issue tax-exempt bonds drew concerns from municipal bond and higher education professionals, who warned of increased reporting requirements for the schools.

Tax-exempt money market funds reported outflows of $696.9 million as total net assets settled at $255.5 billion in the week ended June 23, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

Fayetteville, N.C., Public Works Commission general manager Steven Blanchard has received a top achievement award from the American Public Power Association.

Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes blocked insurer Syncora's request to question the state attorney general, and gave a limited green light to plan for the city's proposal to take the court on a bus tour of the city as part of the upcoming trial.

KNN Public Finance hired public finance veteran Mark Young to lead the firm's new office in Los Angeles and hired Erwin Tam as a vice president in the financial advisory firm's Oakland office.

The Head of the Senate Finance Committee will work with chairman of House Ways and Means for a quick, temporary fix to the fast-depleting Federal Highway Trust Fund.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may have won a battle and lost the war this week, when his plan to withhold $884 million in pension payments in order to balance the budget survived a court challenge by the state's unions.

Formalizing an agreement brokered last week with Mayor Bill de Blasio, the New York City Council approved a $75 billion municipal budget for fiscal 2015.

An Arizona judge has struck down a state car-rental tax that supports $1.2 billion of debt issued for professionals sports stadiums in the state.

Moody's Investors Service has downgraded to Ba3 from Ba2 the rating on the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority's (PREPA) approximately $8.8 billion of outstanding power revenue bonds.

Moody's cut Hampton County School District No. 2, S.C.'s GO bond ratings six notches to Ba3 from A3 due to the small district's deficit fund balance.

California school districts could see their credit quality weaken if a bill that would cap the amount of funds they can keep in reserves gets approved in November.

The Treasury Department auctioned $29 billion of seven-year notes, with a 2 1/8% coupon, a 2.152% high yield, a price of 99.825416.

Despite widespread agreement that Los Angeles County's main jail is obsolete, there is far less consensus about what to do about it, though any answer is likely to be expensive.

Investors are confident the handful of California deals scheduled to enter the municipal market on Thursday will be well received.

The Treasury Department said Thursday it will auction $25 billion 91-day bills and $23 billion 183-day discount bills Monday.

Manufacturing activity in the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's region "slowed somewhat, while producers' expectations for future factory activity showed little change and remained at solid levels" in June, according to the bank's monthly manufacturing survey, released Thursday.

The Fed may move to raise interest rates as early as the first quarter of next year, as inflation moves toward the Fed's 2% target, St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said in a televised interview Thursday.

The municipal bond market opened strong Thursday for the second straight day as the weakness in Wednesday's first quarter gross domestic product reassured investors.

Moody's Investors Service has downgraded Beaumont, Texas' water and sewer debt to A1 from Aa3, citing the city's diminishing reserves and aging infrastructure.