Kansas Municipal News
Municipal Bond Trends for March 21, 2023
The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of MBIS “investment grade” yields. Every issuer’s credit is different, and other financing sources may be available. To obtain comprehensive Financial Advisory services for your local government, contact your Ranson Financial Municipal Advisor, Larry Kleeman, Beth Warren or Henry Schmidt.
The Fed is likely to hike rates by a quarter point but it must also reassure it can contain a banking crisis
The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates Wednesday by a quarter point, but it also faces the tough task of reassuring markets it can stem a worse banking crisis. Economists mostly expect the Fed will raise its fed funds target rate range to 4.75% to 5% Wednesday afternoon, though some expect the central bank could pause its hiking due to concerns about the banking system. Futures markets were pricing in a roughly 80% chance for a rate hike, as of Tuesday morning.The central bank is contemplating using its interest rate tools at the same time it is trying to soothe markets and stop further bank runs. The fear is that rising rates could put further pressure on banking institutions and crimp lending further, hurting small businesses and other borrowers.
Source: CNBC – Bonds
Maize City Administrator Richard LaMunyon to Retire at End of 2023
Mayor Pat Stivers today announced that Maize City Administrator, Richard LaMunyon, has informed the City Council of his intention to retire from his duties at the end of December 2023, after 23 years of service. Richard, a long-time resident of Maize, became City Administrator in 2000 when the city employed eight people (half were part-time), had a geographic size of one square mile, and a population of about 1,800 citizens. Today, Maize is the fastest growing community in the State of Kansas. It now incorporates over ten square miles, employs fifty dedicated workers, and an estimated population of 7,100 residents. During his tenure, city operations grew to include modern facilities at City Hall and Public Works for enhanced citizen services. Growth and economic developments successes include an industrial park district, commercial outlets, sixteen active housing developments and enhancements for quality-of-life amenities.
Source: City of Maize
Riley County: Dangerous dog policy part of broader animal control update
The Riley County Commission on Monday heard a proposal for adding a dangerous dog policy to the county’s animal control regulations. Deputy county counselor Craig Cox presented commissioners with a proposed revision to the countywide animal control resolution, which has remained largely unchanged since it was adopted in 1988. Cox said the proposed addition to the policy would include regulations for keeping dogs that are classified by a court as “dangerous” or “potentially dangerous.” He told commissioners that owners of dogs labeled as such would have to meet certain requirements to keep their dog, such as maintaining a specific type of outdoor enclosure and keeping the animal restrained with a specific type of chain. Owners also would be required to place “beware of dog” signs on their homes before they could get a certificate from the county indicating their dog is registered.
Source: themercury.com
Wichita parking plan would clear the way for price hikes, more parking tickets downtown
The city’s parking plan, up for approval Tuesday, calls for replacing coin-operated parking meters with newer, more expensive technology such as the ParkMobile app, which went into use at Century II last week. The Wichita City Council is expected to vote Tuesday on a plan to hike downtown parking prices and install new technology that would make it easier for the city to issue parking tickets. The Wichita Parking and Multimodal Plan would more closely align the rest of downtown with a recent change at Century II and the former downtown library, where the city removed its coin-operated parking meters, replaced them with a mobile-app payment system and increased prices by 300%. The plan does not say exactly how much rates would change downtown and where pay-to-park would be located. But it does say what the city charges now is too low and that the city should focus its efforts on the most high-traffic areas, such as Old Town. It also calls for the use of license plate readers and other technology to help issue tickets more easily. Any changes should be made with community input, the plan says. The plan aims to maximize profits for city government and downtown businesses through downtown parking pricing and enforcement.
Source: Local News | Wichita Eagle
Riley County Commission to hold quarterly meetings in smaller communities
The Riley County Board of County Commissioners are planning to host quarterly meetings this year outside of Manhattan. Meetings will be held at 6 p.m. in the smaller cities within the county. Commission Chair Kathryn Focke says it’s important to make local government accessible to everyone and says she’s hoping to send the message that “commissioners are here to serve rural residents too.” The first of four meetings will take place March 30 at Riley City Hall.
Source: 1350 KMAN
Salina residents lighting up porches for Narcan awareness
Houses in Salina are going green, and not for recycling. Porches are “lighting up” awareness about Narcan in hopes of saving lives. If you see a porch shining a green light in Salina, you have found a house joining the fight against fentanyl. A green porch light means there is Narcan inside and someone who can administer it. Recently, residents out at the Oxford House in Salina began this awareness campaign, and now the campaign is spreading to personal homes as the need increases. Preston Cressler, a volunteer at an Oxford House, says recent overdoses could’ve been prevented, and the green lights are a way to be proactive. He says when people come to the Oxford House and do drug tests, most people don’t even know they have fentanyl in their system. “There’s a lot of people that don’t know that they are using fentanyl, and then they use fentanyl and the next thing you know, they’re on life support in the hospital and their families sitting around them wondering what happened and like it doesn’t have to be that way,” said Cressler.
Source: KSN-TV
‘Only takes one pill.’ Kansas high school freshman died from fentanyl-laced painkiller
Inside the Burris home, a guitar sits in its corner of the living room. A music stand holds sheets of music, where Nicholas Burris, called “Cruz” by his loved ones, would strum along to The Beatles, Queen and Chuck Berry. Rhonda Burris will miss hearing her son’s fingers plucking, moving across the strings. The 15-year-old could pick up songs quickly and had even begun to write his own. Cruz’s parents believe he could have gone far in his musical pursuits. Some days he dreamed of being an engineer for NASA, and other times he would say he wanted to become a contractor. Either way, they said, Cruz was bound to do something great. “There’s nothing Cruz couldn’t do,” Andrew Burris said. Though he was a freshman at Lansing High School, students of all ages would greet him in the hallways — including the seniors. Cruz told his mother, Rhonda Burris, that was his favorite thing about school. “‘People know me,’” she recalled him saying.
Source: KC Star Local News
Can states keep trains from blocking crossings? High court wants feds to weigh in
The U.S. Supreme Court has invited the federal government to weigh in on whether state and local governments can regulate how long trains can block railroad crossings. The invitation means the high court might eventually give a full hearing to the appeal of a lower court ruling that invalidated Ohio’s blocked crossing law. There’s no guarantee the court will grant the appeal, but Monday’s court order keeps the door open for now. Countless people have died when emergency vehicles were delayed at rail crossings, The Kansas City Star reported in an investigation of railroad safety lapses. The high court refused to hear a similar case last year in which Oklahoma argued that lower courts were split over which federal agency has authority over blocked crossings and asked the justices for clarification. Over the past 20 years, lower courts have repeatedly ruled that state and local restrictions on train movements are preempted by the federal laws that govern the railroad industry. Some of those restrictions were passed recently in response to growing concerns that trains were blocking crossings more often and for longer periods. Other states, like Kansas, adopted their laws more than a century ago. While the courts have ruled that only the federal government can regulate train movements, the states note that Congress has failed to pass any laws limiting how long trains can block a crossing.
Source: KC Star Local News
Munis steady ahead of FOMC meeting
Municipals were steady Monday ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, while U.S. Treasury yields rose as investors considered the stability of the banking sector. Equities ended up. Triple-A benchmarks were little changed, no more than a basis point or two, while U.S. Treasury yields rose five to 12 basis points. … The banking sector crisis, which erupted with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and resurfaced with the struggles of Credit Suisse, sent USTs on a flight-to-quality bid last week. “The two-year plummeted by well over 100 basis points [since March 8], after the short benchmark attained a multiyear high of 5.08% during [Federal Reserve Board] Chair [Jerome] Powell’s semi-annual testimony,” said Jeff Lipton, managing director of credit research at Oppenheimer Inc. Munis joined “the flight-to-quality bandwagon with 10- and 30-year AAA benchmark yields dropping by 23 and 16 basis points respectively,” he said. “Price advances have been more pronounced on the short-end of the muni curve as yields on the one- and two-year tenors declined by 40 and 39 basis points respectively,” he noted.
Source: The Bond Buyer
Mission latest JoCo city to consider antisemitism measure
Mission is joining some other Johnson County cities in considering the adoption of a non-legally binding definition of antisemitism. Like Leawood and Roeland Park, Mission heard from the Jewish Relations Bureau American Jewish Committee about the national rise in antisemitism — punctuated locally by two recent incidents at Johnson County high schools — and the importance of defining it.
Source: Prairie Village Post
SVB Collapse Shows Smaller Banks Can Pose Risk
For 15 years, regulators and legislators have assumed the biggest risks to the financial system came from a handful of “too big to fail” banks. This month’s failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank—and last week’s bank-led rescue of a third lender, First Republic Bank FRC 39.67% increase; green up pointing triangle—suggests that focus on size may have blinded officials to the threat posed by smaller lenders, observers and former regulators say.
Source: WSJ.com: US Business
Fed Faces Tough Decision on Rate Increase
Central-bank officials must balance inflation concerns with new worries about spillovers from banking turmoil. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues this week face one of their toughest calls in years: whether to raise interest rates again to fight stubbornly high inflation or take a timeout amid the most intense banking crisis since 2008. The decision over whether to raise interest rates by a quarter-percentage point is likely to hinge in part on how markets digest the forced marriage Sunday of two Swiss banking giants, UBS and Credit Suisse, and other steps to calm fears of contagion in the banking system. Fed officials’ two-day meeting concludes Wednesday.
Source: WSJ.com: US Business
Municipal Bond Trends for March 20, 2023
The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of MBIS “investment grade” yields. Every issuer’s credit is different, and other financing sources may be available. To obtain comprehensive Financial Advisory services for your local government, contact your Ranson Financial Municipal Advisor, Larry Kleeman, Beth Warren or Henry Schmidt.
Valley Center Public Library is celebrating its 100th birthday
There have been many constants at the Valley Center Public Library over the years. Storytimes. Easter egg hunts. Best-selling novels. Newspapers. And the bell at the front door. “We still have it,” said Terry Foster, the library’s assistant director. “It’s a counter. It’s a patron counter,” Director Janice Sharp said. “And if you’re out in the stacks, you know somebody has come in,” Foster added. And they’ve been coming in for a century. The Valley Center Public Library is celebrating its 100th birthday this month with a party from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. March 20 and with a look back at what got it here. “Libraries are for everybody,” Sharp said. “To me, every community should have a library.” Valley Center’s library started in 1923 with a trunk holding a few dozen books the Progressive Women’s Club bought from the state library board and kept in the homes of club members.
Source: AV News
Water Wise: Hays residents meeting challenges of water conservation, quality
Two water officials in Hays, Kansas say that policies put in place in the 1990s are still paying dividends for a city that is often seen as a model for water-use efficiency. Holly Dickman, a water conservation specialist with the City of Hays, said the nearly three-decade-old water policies are important because Ellis County relies on groundwater mostly from alluvial (shallow) aquifers around the Smoky Hill River and Big Creek, which flow near the city. “So, you can imagine that if it doesn’t rain, those rivers and creeks aren’t running quite as much as they would be and so our well levels can decline,” she said. “The city relies on those water sources for drinking water and more, so you get a little concerned when there’s no rainfall and the well levels begin to fall.” Dickman said drought conditions in the 1990s forced the city’s leaders to adopt several water conservation strategies to preserve what water was available.
Source: Hays Daily News
Municipal Bond Trends for March 17, 2023
The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of MBIS “investment grade” yields. Every issuer’s credit is different. For rates that may be applicable to your municipality, contact our Municipal Bond Advisors, Larry Kleeman, Beth Warren and Henry Schmidt.
Fed poised to approve quarter-point rate hike this week, despite market turmoil
Even with turmoil in the banking industry and uncertainty ahead, the Federal Reserve likely will approve a quarter-percentage-point interest rate increase next week, according to market pricing and many Wall Street experts. Rate expectations have been on a rapidly swinging pendulum over the past two weeks, varying from a half-point hike to holding the line and even at one point some talk that the Fed could cut rates. However, a consensus has emerged that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and his fellow central bankers will want to signal that while they are attuned to the financial sector upheaval, it’s important to continue the fight to bring down inflation. That likely will take the form of a 0.25 percentage point, or 25 basis point, increase, accompanied by assurances that there’s no preset path ahead. The outlook could change depending on market behavior in the coming days, but the indication is for the Fed to hike.
Source: Economy
Local Banks Could Leave Gaps That Are Hard to Fill
Tighter belts for smaller banks could count as a big problem for some parts of the U.S. The failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank as well as questions about First Republic Bank’s future have cast a sudden pall on the banking sector. An emerging concern is that customers at community and regional banks, worrying that their deposits aren’t safe, might pull their money, putting it into money-market funds or accounts at bigger banks. Regulators’ move last Sunday to protect depositors at SVB and Signature, and big banks coming together on Thursday to shore up First Republic with a $30 billion infusion of deposit cash, were aimed at avoiding such an eventuality. With hope, these fire lines will hold. Even if any outflows are halted or reversed, small banks may now grow cautious, such as by simply sitting on more of their cash as a defensive measure. Doing so would effectively reduce their capacity to extend credit.
Source: WSJ.com: Markets
Smaller Banks’ Role in Economy Means Distress Raises Recession Risks
Main Street businesses and American families are likely to find it harder to get a loan because of turmoil in the banking industry, denting economic growth and raising the risk of a recession. “The risk in terms of the spark from SVB is real,” said Greg Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon, a strategy consulting unit of Ernst & Young LLP. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank set off fear among depositors that led to the failure of Signature Bank and the move to rescue First Republic Bank.
Source: WSJ.com: US Business