Public Finance

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Alumni Spotlight: Tina Moroney-Ebarb (Master of Public Affairs '22)

April 10, 2023

Tina Moroney-Ebarb is a broadband program coordinator in the Texas Broadband Development Office within the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. More recently, Moroney-Ebard obtained her Texas contract manager certification and helped her office apply for ARPA and IIJA funds, which could make them eligible for up to $4 billion in federal funds for broadband development and digital equity programs. A big part of her job is to work with her team to formulate and execute a vision for evaluating upcoming broadband deployment application submissions.

Opinion: Congress and taxpayers should both say no to restoring these muni-bond provisions

Op-Ed
Marketwatch

The Biden administration's Build Back Better plan left out two major provisions that aim to reduce state and local government financing costs. Due to intense lobbying by the Bond Dealers Association, the Government Finance Officers Association, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties and U.S. Conference of Mayors, among others, those proposals are expected to be resurrected in smaller separate bills later this year.

But these provisions, which authorize financing tools that previously comprised sizable parts of the municipal bond market, may not save as much money for taxpayers as proponents claim and should be viewed skeptically by Congress.

The first provision is the reinstatement of tax-exempt advance refunding bonds, which had been repealed by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. These are state and local government refinancings sold more than 90 days in advance of the first "call date" of existing debt.

Research Topic
Public Finance

Federal bond insurance can help state and local governments recover

Commentary
The Hill

"What America needs today is a federal program to provide long-term assistance to state and local governments with minimal impact on federal deficits," write LBJ's Martin Luby and former LBJ faculty member Michael Granof. "A federal bond insurance program, in partnership with the private sector, might be just what the doctor ordered."

Research Topic
Public Finance
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