- by James Spiotto With the end of the flurry of Congressional activity over impeachment, followed by a general yearning for the end to partisan conflicts, we now look to this year and what issues can be addressed before the national election. There remain lingering...
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What Illinois Can Learn From the Supreme Court of Rhode Island and Even Puerto Rico About Public Pension Reform
By James E. Spiotto The U.S. Supreme Court and virtually all state courts have recognized what the Rhode Island Supreme Court recently reaffirmed: insurmountable, unaffordable government contractual obligations for public pensions must be capable of reasonable and...
Not All Cities Have A Pension Problem
By Richard A. Ciccarone, President & CEO of Merritt Research Services, LLC and Co-Owner of MUNINET, LLC The Top 21% of Cities With High Pension Funding Levels Deserve Attention and Usually Praise With so much well-deserved negative attention focused on cities...
Worried About Public Pensions? Counties Often Have Lower Burdens
Counties Often Underappreciated Despite Generally Improving Fund Balances and Lower Debt and Pension Liabilities By Richard A. Ciccarone County governments are generally a good place to start your search for governments with positive financial conditions as well as...
Fiscal Year 2017 Municipal Bond Audit Times Are Still Too Slow
Municipal Bond Audit Times Show Slight Improvement Since 2015 But Most Still Late to the Table -- The County, State and City Sectors are the Least Timely By Richard A. Ciccarone Municipal bond analysts and investors are accustomed to waiting a lot longer for...
Chapter 9 Municipal Bankruptcy Statistics: Use by Number, Type and Year
Historically, the use of Chapter 9 bankruptcy by a municipality is still rare, and a last resort. MuniNet Guide's update on historical and current municipal bankruptcy statistics We are providing an update on our 2015 piece on municipal bankruptcy statistics. One of...
Paying for Yesterday’s Public Services with Tomorrow’s Funds – Risking City Fiscal Stress
Are Fixed Costs Squeezing Out State and Local Governments' Ability to Deliver Public Services? In the back of every analyst’s mind, whenever they assess public pension risk and the potential for fiscal stress, is the question of whether or not the annual cost to pay...
U.S. State Crime Rates – Comparing Types of Crimes Across the States
Report - U.S. State Crime Rates by Type for All 50 States, D.C., and Puerto Rico This report gives researchers and citizens an opportunity to look at U.S. state crime rates, what crimes are being committed and in what frequency, for all 50 states plus Puerto Rico and...
Re-Assessing the Credit Quality of America’s Cities in 2017 – Part One: Examining Financial Health Against a Backdrop of High Ratings
Are Credit Ratings Reflecting True Risk? More than two years ago, MuniNet published a five-part series on Assessing the Credit Quality of America's Cities, intended to examine and create a framework to analyze the financial health of cities. With this first...
Who Watches the Watchdogs? Be Your Own Media Bias and ‘Fake’ News Analyst
The Best Armor Against Media Bias, Fake News, and Other Disinformation is Your Own Education and Ability to Identify It MuniNet takes a look at why bias matters, the difference between bias, spin, and truly 'fake' news, and provides you with tools to...