The Federal Reserve made the markets happy when its Open Markets Committee met and agreed on the record that the U. S. economy had recovered sufficiently that interest rates could begin creeping higher. The minutes from FOMC's two-day meeting suggested that the Fed Funds rate would increase in June. At the same time the Fed members lowered their estimate for where the rate would be at year end from 1.2% to 0.625%, a clear signal that there would be an effort to see rates rise gradually. That would be a departure from the last two times that interest rates were tightened and good news for construction borrowing.

 Eight months after an extended moratorium on PlanCon reimbursements was lifted, Gov. Wolf has included language in his proposed budget legislation that would put a new moratorium in place July 1, 2015. Opposition to the new ban is fairly stiff from both sides of the aisle and HB210 - which will reform PlanCon and increase funding - now awaits a vote in the House. It seems likely that proposed moratorium is meant to stimulate compromise but the language is in keeping with Gov. Wolf's emphasis on new education funding going to the classroom. The threat of an additional year's slowdown in reimbursements and planning is unwelcome news for the K-12 market, which was finally showing signs of recovery.

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