Special Briefing: Year Ahead for America’s States and Municipalities

Join us for a Special Briefing as Bill Glasgall of the Volcker Alliance, Susan Wachter of the Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR), and our panel of experts discuss the year ahead for America’s states and municipalities. Fiscal 2025 will be an especially consequential one, with the Federal Reserve expected to cut interest rates for the first time in almost five years as inflation and the economy cool; the impending end of federal emergency pandemic aid; and, of course, the likely consequences of the November presidential and congressional elections.

Our panel of experts will include Vikram Rai, head of municipal markets strategy, Wells Fargo; Jane Ridley, managing director and local government sector leader, S&P Global; Matthew Stitt, managing director, PFM's Management and Budget Consulting team, and former CFO, Philadelphia City Council; and Mark Zandi, chief economist, Moody’s Analytics.  

This briefing is the fifty-fourth in a series of sixty-minute online conversations featuring experts from the national research networks of the Volcker Alliance and Penn IUR, along with other leading academics, economists, and federal, state, and local leaders. 

Special Briefings are made possible by the Volcker Alliance and members of the Penn IUR Advisory Board.

Recordings of the entire Special Briefings series are available on the Volcker Alliance website: SPECIAL BRIEFING SERIES ARCHIVE.

Be sure to subscribe to the Special Briefing podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeart Radio and more.

Also, be sure to subscribe to the Volcker Alliance newsletter and Penn IUR newsletter.

Additional Materials

Fitch Ratings - 2025 U.S. State Budgets Back to Normal

Pew - How a Pandemic-Era Surge in Tax Collections Drove a Revenue Wave—and What It Means for Future State Budgets

Pew - Record Federal Grants to States Keep Federal Share of State Budgets High

Urban Institute - Monthly State Revenue Highlights: Majority of States

California LAO - Overview of the Spending Plan