Harris Beach's Public Finance attorneys focus on providing advice and counsel to New York state, cities, counties, towns and other municipalities, school districts and various other public entities regarding the issuance of general obligation debt to finance capital projects, cash flow management, refundings, revenue shortfalls and deficit liquidation. Our attorneys serve as bond counsel on all types of general obligation and lease-purchase transactions, including long-term bonds, statutory installment bonds, bond anticipation notes, tax and revenue anticipation notes, deficiency notes and energy performance contracts; and have extensive experience working on transactions with all independent financial advisory firms serving New York state’s municipalities and school districts and with the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation. 

Our public finance attorneys have rendered opinions in more than 2,000 transactions, involving in excess of $100 billion aggregate principal amount of tax-exempt obligations. Within finance transactions, we have served as bond counsel, special tax counsel, underwriters’ counsel, purchaser’s counsel and special disclosure counsel.

In addition, the attorneys in the firm’s Tax Group provide advice and counsel to our general obligation financing clients in all regions of New York state, including federal tax compliance procedures, private activity and use issues arising from certain capital projects, and post-issuance arbitrage and use of proceeds compliance. On refunding bond transactions, the Tax Group attorneys are actively involved in structuring the escrow to assure compliance with applicable arbitrage yield limitations and compliance with allocation rules for any sources of funds deposited in escrow other than refunding bond proceeds