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 and Beth Warren.
Federal Reserve officials indicated at their last meeting that easy policy will stay in place until it produces stronger employment and inflation, and won’t be adjusted based merely on forecasts. The Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday released minutes from the March 16-17 meeting as investors looked for indications about where policy may be heading in the future. … The minutes said members agreed that changes in policy “should be based primarily on observed outcomes rather than forecasts.” … At the meeting, the Fed’s policymaking arm voted to keep short-term borrowing rates anchored near zero and to continue buying at least $120 billion in bonds each month. The market will get plenty of notice before the committee makes any changes, the minutes said.
Source: CNBC
Hometown pride isn’t penned up in rural communities, but the bulls on main street sure are. Nearly 100 people packed into the Smoky Valley Distillery in Marquette on Tuesday night to participate in one of the most unusual bull sales many had seen in their lives. Ryan Barta, owner of Barta Farms LLC in Little River, asked the Marquette City Council in late March if he could hold his “Angus Comes to Town” sale downtown, to which they responded positively. “I think there’s been a lot of excitement,” Barta said. “This is something that’s not normally done; it’s normally in a building or on a farm site. Cattle on ‘Main Street’ is not a norm, especially in today’s world.” The bulls themselves waited in a portable corral in the middle of Washington Street — Marquette’s downtown center — while the community gathered for a dinner and socializing before the auction kicked off.
Source: Hutch News.
The votes are in and with 212 votes, the citizens of Dodge City voted on the new black-starred, gold backdrop with black and white stripe, to represent Dodge City as its new flag. According to city officials, there were five options to choose through for the new Dodge City Flag with the vote concluding on March 31. City officials said the flag will serve as a symbol for Dodge City and a source of civic pride.
Source: Dodge City Daily Globe
Kansas Republican legislators from the House and Senate remain largely divided on several proposed budget and policy elements of K-12 public education in the state. … The act would take the standard per-pupil aid normally given to public schools and place it into an education savings account for students designated as “at-risk” to use for private school tuition and other education-adjacent expenses. The bill would also fully fund public education as requested in the governor’s budget for 2021 and 2022. In 2023, the measure would remove a funding formula provision giving additional budget weighting to students in districts with a high number of at-risk students per square mile.
Source: Kansas Reflector
Johnson County has suffered one more loss in its battle with big box retailers over property valuations. The Kansas Court of Appeals has sided with the landlords of Bass Pro Shops in Olathe, who contended the county overestimated its property value by millions of dollars in 2016 and 2017, resulting in a sudden jump in property tax the company owed. In an opinion filed Friday, April 2, the court upheld a ruling by the Kansas Board of Tax Appeals that substantially reduced the property taxes the Bass Pro landlords owed for those two years. The panel said Johnson County failed to make a compelling case for its argument for a higher valuation on the property.
Source: Shawnee Mission Post
The kids were at home when animal control and police arrived at Kristi Bond’s Leawood residence. The order was direct and to the point. The family would have to remove Lucy, the Bonds’ dog especially beloved by their young daughter, from the city. Lucy’s crime: resembling a pit bull, a breed outlawed within Leawood city limits. Had Bond lived in just about any other city in the metro area, Lucy’s looks wouldn’t have been an issue. One by one, other municipalities have dropped laws that target pit bulls – a catch-all term for breeds that look a certain way – with restrictions or outright bans. Leawood and Overland Park are the last major cities holding on to such breed-specific ordinances.
Source: Shawnee Mission Post
The Kansas Senate waded into the world of high finance Tuesday with fiery debate primarily among Republicans on a bill issuing $500 million in bonds with proceeds invested under the premise earnings would help the bottom line of the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System. The state in 2004 and again in 2015 approved similar maneuvers that involved a total of $1.5 billion in bonds for KPERS. … Sen. Tom Hawk, D-Manhattan, said the bond option was a wise strategy that took advantage of KPERS’ impressive record of sustained positive return on investment. … From another vantage point, however, Hutchinson Sen. Mark Steffen, bonding represented nothing more than legal gambling at the possible expense of taxpayers. He said bond debt would be an albatross if KPERS’ investment portfolio were hammered in an economic crash during the next 30 years.
Source: Kansas Reflector
In November, COVID-19 hit Gove County as hard as nearly any other county in the U.S. Because of its small population, a couple dozen deaths caused the western Kansas county’s death rate to skyrocket. Fast forward to today, Gove County is leading the state in vaccinations and is far ahead of the national average. A lot can change in four months. In December, national news outlets called Gove County one of the “deadliest” in America. A handful of deaths in a rural county has a big impact, both on its COVID-19 statistics and its citizens. But now Gove County is statistically one of the safest against COVID-19 in Kansas with 30.3 percent of its people vaccinated. It’s the state’s second highest vaccination rate, following its neighbor, Graham County.
Source: KWCH.
Wind now cranks up more kilowatts than any other power source in the state. Yet even as towering turbines and their slow-churning blades come to increasingly define the Kansas landscape, a counter movement seems to take hold. A bill pending in the Kansas Legislature would all but outlaw the erection of more of those giant turbines by saying that companies couldn’t place them within a mile and a half of an existing building. The legislation would also bar new wind farms within three miles from any airport and one mile from the property line of anybody not participating in the development.
Source: The Chanute Tribune
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