Debt & Borrowing

 

Debt & Borrowing

States issue debt and maintain widely accepted debt policy standards to borrow money primarily for capital intensive infrastructure projects. Annual debt service expenditures represent a relatively small but important component of state budgets. Current municipal market trends suggest states will continue to have the sufficient financing necessary for large scale public works and improvement projects.

Staff Contact: Michael Streepey

NASBO Publications

  • A State Budgeting Perspective on Public Pensions
    State and local pension systems have received significant attention in the last few years. Changes to state pension systems have been taking place in response to the increased attention and concerns.  This brief examines a number of pension issues from a budgetary perspective. A budgetary perspective considers long term pension funding adequacy, and the financial cost of promised benefits in relation to the rest of current state spending.
  • Municipal Bonds in 2011: An Update on State and Local Borrowing
    The state and local government bond markets have held up well throughout the year despite a few high profile municipal defaults or bankruptcies by local governments. The forecasts from some commentators in 2010 and earlier this year predicting a municipal bond crisis have not come to fruition, and a collapse of the municipal debt markets is not likely to arise anytime soon. Certainly states and localities will continue to encounter fiscal strain, but potential defaults or bankruptcies are so few and far between that they are the “exceptions” that prove the “rule”.
  • Fact Sheet: State Debt, Pensions and Bankruptcy Information
    Facts You Should Know: State and Local Bankruptcy, Municipal Bonds, and State and Local Pensions was produced by the following organizations in early 2011:

Washington Report

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