Short-Term Financing

Orrick's public finance lawyers have substantial experience in the short-term, tax-exempt area.

Since 1985, we have served as bond or other counsel on more than 3,000 issues totaling in excess of $200 billion. These issues have ranged from $600,000 for the City of Corning (CA) sewer revenue bond anticipation notes to $10.0 billion for the State of California 2010 revenue anticipation notes. Orrick generally ranks number one in the country in the volume of short-term financings it handles as bond counsel.

In addition to representing states, cities, counties, school districts, community college districts, transit and other special districts, we have also served as bond counsel on and created innovative structures for many short-term pooled financings, such as the California Statewide Communities Development Authority annual tax and revenue anticipation note pool for counties, cities and various special districts and the California School Boards Association Finance Corporation annual tax and revenue anticipation note pool for school districts, community college districts, county boards of education and community college districts. We advise issuers with respect to the sizing of note issues, calculating the issuer's cash flow deficit and determining how the issuer qualifies for one of the tax code exceptions to arbitrage rebate (i.e., the $5 million small issuer exception or the six-month expenditure exception under either the "safe harbor" rule or the "reasonable working capital reserve" rule (which provides for ten percent of preceding year's general fund expenditures). Our experience has also included structuring commercial paper programs for public agencies, representing underwriters, and representing bank issuers of credit support for short-term tax-exempt programs. Outside of California, our short-term practice has included matters in Arkansas, Louisiana, New York, New Jersey and Vermont.

  • Representative clients include:

    • State of California
    • California Department of Transportation
    • California State Public Works Board
    • California School Boards Association
    • California Statewide Communities Development Authority
    • Contra Costa County and Contra Costa Community College District
    • East Bay Municipal Utility District
    • Hesperia Fire Protection District
    • Fresno County and Fresno Unified School District
    • Lassen Municipal Utility District
    • Los Angeles County
    • State of Louisiana
    • Mendocino County
    • Modesto Irrigation District
    • Moorpark Unified School District
    • Mt. Diablo Unified School District
    • Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
    • State of New York
    • City of Pasadena
    • Sacramento County and City of Sacramento
    • San Bernardino County
    • San Diego County and Unified School District
    • San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District
    • San Joaquin County
    • Santa Barbara County
    • Santa Clara County
    • City of Santa Rosa School District
    • Simi Valley Unified School District
    • Trinity County
    • Ventura County
    • State of Vermont