News

This week the GFOA is circulating a member survey to inquire about your experiences with the SEC’s Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation initiative. The MCDC initiative was launched by the SEC last March and invited issuers and underwriters to self-report instances of material misstatements in bond offering documents regarding the issuer’s prior compliance with its continuing disclosure obligations.

The purpose of the Ask Me Why I Care: Public Service Stories project is to show young people, in this time of virulently anti-government environment sentiment, that government jobs will allow them tackle the most daunting issues in our society and to make a difference in people’s lives.

Last week Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) kicked off his committee’s work on organizing the Senate’s tax reform plan by announcing five bipartisan working groups to explore the existing federal tax code and identify areas that are ripe for reform. The working groups are: Individual Income Tax; Business Income Tax; Savings and Investment; International Tax; and Community Development and Infrastructure.

Despite the best efforts of the state and local community, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) was unwilling to bring the Marketplace and Internet Tax Fairness Act to the floor for a vote by the full House of Representatives in the final days of the congressional session. The measure would have enabled state and local governments to compel online retailers to collect and remit taxes from remote sales, and extended the current moratorium on the taxation of Internet access for ten years.

Strengthened financial reserves, increased transparency, and an expanded focus on long-term planning are among the highlights of new financial policies approved this week by Houston City Council.

As the December 1, 2014, deadline approaches for governments to participate in the SEC Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation (MCDC) Initiative, the GFOA’s Committee on Governmental Debt Management has released a final alert to provide guidance to governments on the initiative.

Cutbacks in public pensions could hurt worker quality, as research shows that pensions help recruit and retain high-quality workers, according to a brief from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. One indicator of quality is the wage that a worker can earn in the private sector, and by this measure, states and localities consistently have a “quality gap” – the workers they lose have a higher private-sector wage than those they gain, the center’s research found.

State and local governments are hiring again, but they’re having difficulty finding – and retaining – the right people. In a recent Governing article, Center for State and Local Government Excellence President and CEO Elizabeth K. Kellar asks if governments have a people problem.

President Obama signed a short-term $1.012 trillion fiscal measure to keep the federal government running through December 11, 2014. The measure also includes an extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA) until that time. ITFA – the current law that prohibits state and local taxation of Internet access – would expire on November 1 without the language included in budget measure.

Several associations that represent the interests of local governments, including the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in support of municipal broadband networks and voiced concerns with state laws that prohibit or limit their deployment.

Federal regulators are set to approve new liquidity standards on banks that could increase borrowing costs for state and local governments, according to reports from Bloomberg and other news outlets. The Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Office of the Comptroller of Currency are scheduled to vote on September 3, 2014, on the new rules, which would require banks with at least $250 billion in assets to meet new liquidity requirements.

In the year ended June 30, 2014, U.S. state and local-government pension investments earned the highest returns seen in three years, according to a report from Wilshire Associates, as reported by Bloomberg. Public pension returns increased by 16.9%, the best performance since fiscal 2011, when returns increased by 21.2%. Funds with more than $1 billion in assets performed best, with a median increase of 17.4%, attributed to larger alternative asset allocations.