As the Libor scandal unfolds, scrutiny turns to other bond markets, including the municipal bond industry’s price-setting institutions. The Municipal Market Data index (MMD) sets rates that “influence a much smaller market than Libor, but it is one that is crucial to how cities and states across America borrow money to maintain roads and bridges…
Category: Austerity
Thousands of towns face budget squeeze in downturns wake – Economy Watch
Sean Mulvey, the newly appointed finance director for the town of East Greenbush, N.Y., is trying to solve a riddle facing cities and towns across the country. Though property tax revenues in the Albany suburb have yet to recover from the worst housing collapse since the Great Depression, fixed expenses like long-term contracts, debt interest…
Scranton, Pa., slashes workers pay to minimum wage – Bottom Line
Unions representing civil servants in the city of Scranton, Pa., are girding for battle after the mayor announced recently that he would be cutting pay for police, firefighters, garbage collectors and other public workers to minimum wage. … The lawsuit will be among several legal actions the unions may take after Doherty made the announcement…
Public Workers Face Continued Layoffs, and Recovery Is Hurt – NYTimes.com
With the economy expanding, albeit slowly, state tax revenues have started to recover and are estimated to exceed prerecession levels next year. Yet governors and legislatures are keeping a tight rein on spending, whether to refill depleted rainy-day funds or because of political inclination. At the same time, costs for health care, social services, pensions…
“Cities Facing Worst Fiscal Situation Since 1980”
The Pew Charitable Trust report, outlining the bleak context in which I’m trying to devise a dissertation research strategy. 2012 looks to be one of the worst years in the cities I’m studying since the early 2000s. City officials and the vast majority of workers are deeply entrenched in an ongoing recession, despite the fact that…