Road bonds expected after passage of Michigan budget

Michigan's $82.5 billion fiscal 2025 budget — which Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is expected to sign — includes spending on roads and bridges financed by the $700 million final tranche of Rebuilding Michigan Plan bonds, which will be issued later this year. The state's teacher retirement unfunded liability is projected to be paid off next year, which also freed up some money to fund K-12 education, said Craig Thiel, research director at the Citizens Research Council of Michigan.?

From politics to disclosure to funding, the changing climate challenges muni issuers. Learn more in our Climate Spotlight 2024 package.

States continue to chip away at income taxes by lowering rates or adopting tax credits, with Arkansas and Kansas enacting reductions last month that will reduce collections by hundreds of millions of dollars in fiscal 2025. But the overall trend of large tax cuts, which reached a peak in 2022, has slowed considerably, according to Fitch Ratings.?

Early bird rates are available for The Bond Buyer's Infrastructure event in September in Philadelphia.

Davis Polk has hired infrastructure finance lawyer Elena Millerman to join the firm in New York as a co-leader as it builds out its infrastructure practice. Millerman joins as partner and co-head of the infrastructure finance group. She was previously at White & Case LLP, where most recently she served as the global head of the project development and finance group. "Infrastructure practice is a strategic priority for our firm," said Neil Barr, Davis Polk's managing partner.

Watch what the municipal bond industry’s innovators and influencers are saying in our Leaders series of video interviews. Check out our lineup of future live interviews and archived conversations.

"With a nonexistent new-issue calendar and heavy dealer balance sheets, we expect the muni market to get a bit 'grabby' over the next few weeks," AllianceBernstein strategists said.

Read the newest research from The Bond Buyer detailing the public finance industry’s views of the risks and opportunities in 2024.

Another round of grants authorized in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is going out to 129 airports in 40 states.

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