Bond Investors and Kansas

Kansas: Documents for eight bond offerings in 2009 and 2010 by the states Development Finance Authority didnt tell investors that a study had pegged Kansass public-employee pension as the second-most underfunded in the nation. Kansas, which didnt admit or deny the findings, put in place new disclosure policies and agreed to settle the case, according to Bloomberg. The SEC has been cracking down on faulty disclosure by states and localities that borrow in the $3.7 trillion municipal-bond market and The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Kansas with failing to disclose a multibillion-dollar pension liability to bond investors. Kansas failed to adequately disclose its multibillion-dollar pension liability in bond offering documents, leaving investors with an incomplete picture of the states finances and its ability to repay the bonds amid competing strains on the state budget, LeeAnn Ghazil Gaunt, chief of the SEC Enforcement Divisions Securities and Public Pension Unit, said in a statement from Washington . (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.