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Girard Miller

Girard Miller

Finance Columnist

Girard Miller is the finance columnist for Governing. He is a retired investment and public finance professional and the author of “Enlightened Public Finance” (2019). Miller brings 30 years of experience in public finance and investments as a former Governmental Accounting Standards Board member and ICMA Retirement Corp. president.

Miller writes Governing's bi-weekly newsletter on public finance, which you can sign up for here.

He can be reached at millergirard@yahoo.com. 

Office workers’ exodus should be countered with wiser state and federal tax incentives, and there’s a novel municipal bond angle to promote. But cities themselves must step up to stem the urban maladies that feed public fears.
Rapidly developing AI-powered technology is making it easier to appropriate the public sector's financial information for proprietary uses. Businesses that slice and dice this data should be renters, not owners.
Halloween seems an apt metaphor for what state and local financiers will encounter over the next year and beyond: plenty of tricks but a modest supply of treats.
The annual Medicare-plus advertising blitz now under way should remind us that smarter post-employment benefit designs for state and local employees are long overdue.
A hefty nationwide increase in premiums for public employers to provide their workers and retirees with health coverage will outstrip most governments’ revenue growth. It’s time to address and attack root causes.
With federal deficits soaring, bond issuers may face higher financing costs. State and local cash managers shine for now, but all eyes will be on the coming congressional budget battle.
Many Americans are at risk of outliving their retirement savings. State pension plans could have a new role: selling longevity insurance. It could even save states money in the long run.
An online resource now being built out has the potential to become an important intellectual hub for public-sector investment practitioners. They need to articulate what they most want to find there.
Private credit has gained a growing share of pension portfolios over the past decade. It’s time to take a second look under the hood.
Inflation rates are coming down, but state and local labor costs will be sticky, as will public-employee health-care expenses. Overall, though, it’s a better outlook for pension funding and astute government cash managers.