Finance
Managing public finance has become a demanding aspect of state and local government, especially as economic health fluctuates and outside forces create revenue instability. Articles on taxes, budgets, pensions and bonds help to bring insight to finance management at the state and local level.
Inflation, tight property tax caps and cooling sales tax revenue are forcing municipalities to cut contracts, raise fees and reduce services.
Culture wars over environmental, social and governance factors used by pension fiduciaries are in the spotlight, but it’s the municipal bond arena where long-term analysis must trump short-term symbolic politics. Sustainability actually matters to investors.
A charter amendment that was approved by voters in 2020 will restore financial control to the 15-member council, allowing them to reallocate funds without mayoral approval. The last time the council had this power was in 1898.
The amount that fire victims receive after taxes and attorney fees is sometimes as little as just 25 percent of the original award. A state bill would allow victims to subtract wildfire settlements from their taxable income.
The state Senate passed a bill that will make it a felony for county election offices to receive money from nonprofit organizations after complaints that donations disproportionately benefited Democrats.
The state-run company Citizens has warned it may impose a “hurricane tax” this year if another big, expensive storm, or a series of little ones, hit the state. The company now insures 1.2 million homeowners, a 50 percent increase.
Letting all depositors off the hook creates a moral hazard, but taxpayer money should be protected. If Congress won’t extend full insurance to states and localities, banks should be required to protect those deposits with their own collateral.
The state’s latest proposal would create a flat income tax rate of 2.75 percent and would cut corporate property taxes and increase residential/agricultural property taxes. But experts say benefits of Ohio’s tax cuts are unclear.
State and local leaders will face implementation challenges of scale, complexity and accountability. To mitigate those and maximize the benefits of new federal programs, they need to have the right strategies in place.
The 2022 stock market plunge has taken a toll on some of the nation’s largest state and municipal pension funds, making it harder to pay for future retirement benefits to millions of K-12 teachers and other public employees.
State lawmakers would spend some of The Education Trust Fund’s money on the Mobile Airport Authority, the Port of Alabama, hydroelectric and EV workforce training and more.
To combat the problem, “sign rangers” are trained by the county attorney’s office to spot and remove illegal signage. State lawmakers are considering increasing penalties against sign bandits to as much as $5,000.
An initiative to help policymakers use evidence to inform spending is coming to a close after more than a decade, but it should be just the beginning of state governments’ efforts to bring analytical tools to bear to produce better outcomes.
When it comes to transportation infrastructure, the street curb is increasingly viewed as a revenue source for cash-strapped public transit as it tries to recover from the lingering effects of pandemic ridership declines.
The state has signaled its support for allocating an additional $70 million to Gov. Tina Kotek’s initial request of $130 million in emergency funds to help move residents off the streets and keep them housed.
Large banks are assuring their customers that the recent failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank of New York aren’t likely to affect the average resident as Maine banks don’t have much reliance on venture capital or cryptocurrency clients.
Remote work presents myriad fiscal challenges to cities as well as employers. Business tax incentives are also in peril. Are “15-minute cities” the ultimate remedy?
Though the Auditor of State hasn’t identified any government in Ohio that is improperly spending its pandemic funds, debates have sparked about whether the funds can be appropriately used on things like a new jail or improved baseball stadium.
It would be a dereliction of duty for public treasurers and other institutional investors to ignore climate change, environmental degradation, water shortages and poor company governance.
A Fox Business host claimed that the migration of 500,000 people out of the state between 2020 and 2022 was costing California billions of dollars. But, while people are leaving, they’re not to blame for the budget deficit.
The new system would create a centralized statewide voter registration database that could be implemented as soon as next year’s primary elections and aims to increase efficiency and consistency.
The agency has forgiven billions of dollars in student loans for borrowers whose schools closed before they finished their degrees, as part of an Obama-era program. Biden’s debt relief plan still awaits a decision from the Supreme Court.
BART and other transit agencies are budgeting the last of their pandemic-era federal relief and looking ahead to big, ongoing deficits. Solutions are still hard to find.
With a bond issue earmarked for community projects and marketed to individual investors as well as institutional buyers, Chicago is trying to move the needle on social equity. Is it the start of a durable trend, or just a cute public finance anomaly?
While the state doesn’t track who gets the biggest incentives, data shows that wealthy tech companies receive the largest breaks. However, the state often loses money on these economic development efforts.
Federal pandemic aid that has helped many rural hospitals stave off collapse is rapidly drying up. But the small town of Bowie is trying to save some of its health care services and may act as a case study for other rural areas.
The number of Black-owned banks has decreased from 48 in 2001 to just 20 now, four of which are in Atlanta. But to keep the institutions alive, Black banks need to modernize their services to keep up with other competitors.
Nearly 1.2 million residents applied or were automatically eligible to receive student loan forgiveness under the Biden administration’s relief plan. The forgiveness plan is currently on hold by a court ruling.
A 2018 report found that Vikrum Aiyer improperly billed the federal government for more than $15,000 of expenses. Aiyer has been nominated by San Francisco Mayor London Breed to help oversee the city’s homeless commission.
The legislation would create a flat state income tax rate of 2.75 percent, which would yield a larger tax break for the highest tax bracket, and would supplement the lost revenue by cutting $1.2 billion per year in state property tax rollbacks.
The Alaska budget attempts to address some of the state’s crises, such as the public defender shortage and a backlog of Medicaid and SNAP benefits applications, but the $400 million deficit is millions more than estimated.
