News and Information from Bond Buyer

William Glasgall of the Volcker Alliance dives deep into factors affecting state and local budgets. He looks at what the Inflation Reduction Act means, how states are using stimulus money and economic effects of work from home. Caitlin Devitt hosts. (31 minutes)

Higher education borrowing led by century bond deals helped offset the dive in refundings brought on by rising interest rates.

The mediation team cites progress, but needs more time to reach an agreement.

Moody's said 35 out of the 82 borrowers that disclosed first-time draws on debt service reserve funds since April 2020 have averted delinquency "at least for now."

Gorab, president and managing director of New Jersey's Wilentz, Goldman and Spitzer, died in June at age 61.

"Demand for low-duration tax-exempts has been so strong that short maturity benchmark yields are now lower than the after-tax yields for comparably rated benchmark taxable muni and corporate bonds," said CreditSights strategists Pat Luby and John Ceffalio.

Inflation and material shortages are accelerating the P3 trend of bringing in a private team before price is finalized, which could expose investors to cost-escalation risk.

Vern Breland is representing himself, and told a court he relied on his municipal advisor.

Bond issuance in the Southwest region was down 10.1% to $40.8 billion from January through June compared to the same period in 2021.

Funding transit infrastructure is one of the county's key initiatives and also reinforces its policy to reduce carbon emissions, increase mobility equity and promote transit-oriented development, says Fitch's Michael Rinaldi.

Spreads on underwriting municipal bonds dipped to below $4 per $1,000 on issues in the first half of 2022 due to heavy competition and a shrinking volume of deals — the lowest figures reported in two decades.

Total volume in the first half of the year was at $209.718 billion in 5,153 deals, down 11.2% from the $235.836 billion in 6,793 over the same period in 2021, according to Refinitiv data.

The two main insurers, Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp. and Build America Mutual, accounted for $17.132 billion of deals in the first two quarters compared to $18.794 billion a year earlier.

Environmental facilities and public facilities saw the largest contraction in issuance.

Democrats say the $740 billion legislation would mark the largest climate change mitigation investment in the country's history.

New-issue volume grows to $10.7 billion led by a $2.7 billion taxable Massachusetts ESG deal, $1.35 billion of Oklahoma natural gas taxables, $1.25 billion from the Regents of the University of California and $1.1 billion from New York City.

S&P revised the state's outlook to positive in September, which gives it a one-in-three chance of a ratings boost over the two-year outlook period.

Illinois laid out updated six-year transportation packages allocating more than $30 billion in spending.

The training camps will focus on 30 grant programs in the infrastructure law that carry the biggest bang for their buck and allow cities to apply directly to the feds.

A court-ordered modification of the plan is more likely than outright rejection, sources say.