Municipal News & Jobs

“A toothache” is what Abilene Mayor Tim Shafer called it.
“A toothache with a migraine,” commented Commissioner Dee Marshall.
At Monday’s Abilene City Commission meeting, that is how they described what was once the Highlands Addition housing development, 116 acres of land now owned by the city of Abilene with a $4 million debt for infrastructure.
The development dates back to 2006 when a housing needs forecast based on the planning goals of the nearby military base said housing was needed. That need nor the subdivision developed.
“This is what I hear about: what we are doing about it,” Shafer said at the meeting.
City Manager Austin Gilley posed the question what to do with Highlands a year ago. Monday night the question was how much to charge, if anything, to sell it off.

Read more: Abilene Reflector-Chronicle.

The city of Lawrence recently discovered it has been incorrectly taxing as many as 2,000 solid waste customers, adding to a list of other billing errors that the city has discovered over the past two years.

Customers who requested an additional trash cart were mistakenly being charged sales tax for the cart, while other customers were not charged sales tax on the purchase of certain yard waste and other bins when they should have been. The city discovered the incorrectly assessed taxes for solid waste containers after a different sales tax error, discovered by the state of Kansas, prompted the city to review its utility billings, according to a city staff memo recently provided to the Lawrence City Commission.

In total, the city isn’t sure how much it overcharged in sales taxes because billing records for 2012, when the mistaken billing began, aren’t readily available. But between September 2013 and June 2018 — when the error was discovered — the city overcharged sales taxes by about $37,000. Customers who had an extra trash cart and were incorrectly charged the sales tax can apply for a refund, which in most cases will be about $4 a year, with a maximum of $12 in total.

Read more: LJWorld.com

The Federal Reserve opted not to raise interest rates during its policy meeting this week and pledged that future moves will be done patiently and with an eye toward how economic conditions unfold.
In a statement Wednesday, the central bank voted unanimously to hold its policy rate in a range between 2.25 percent and 2.5 percent.
The decision came along with a separate statement on the Fed’s balance sheet indicating that policymakers will consider adjusting the reduction of the central bank’s bond portfolio if conditions warrant. Officials in that statement also said they expect to operate with “an ample supply” of bank reserves, an indication that the balance sheet will remain sizable once its reduction is complete.

In a move that represented a divergence from policy of the past several years, the Fed dropped language that more rate hikes likely would be warranted – “further gradual increases,” as stated after the December meeting – and said it was adopting a more cautious approach.

Read more: CNBC.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to price, was lower at around 2.6720 percent, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was also lower at 3.030 percent.
The moves in pre-market trade come after the Federal Reserve adopted a more cautious tone in the previous session. The U.S. central bank said it would be “patient” with further interest rate hikes, signalling a potential end to its tightening cycle amid signs of a possible economic downturn.
On Wednesday, the Fed held interest rates — as expected — and dismissed its promises of “further gradual increases” over the coming months.

Read more: CNBC.