The French have a saying: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” That seems quite applicable to Puerto Rico’s current fiscal situation. We are now more than two years into a full-blown debt crisis (to us, the current crisis dates back to April 2012,...
by James Spiotto The financial health of some municipalities across the nation that are in financial distress is being threatened by unfunded public employee pension obligations that are not affordable and sustainable. When the cost of meeting public pension...
by James Spiotto In July of 2013, Detroit was the first city that was the largest city in the state to seek protection under Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code for municipal debt adjustment. Previously, Chapter 9 had been a remedy used rarely by any city, town, village...
When California State Controller John Chiang took office in 2007, increasing transparency and accountability were among his top priorities. One of his goals was to increase public access to local government financial data. Fast forward to 2014. Public access to local...
