The Joint Compliance Outreach Program is an annual, multi‑day outreach event co‑hosted by the SEC, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) and FINRA that brings regulators together with municipal market firms to discuss compliance and regulatory issues, answer questions, and provide practical guidance on topics affecting the municipal securities market.
“Municipal market professionals” generally refers to market participants involved in municipal securities, most commonly municipal securities dealers and municipal advisors, along with other professionals that work with municipal securities transactions and compliance (e.g., broker‑dealers, compliance officers, and other market intermediaries).
In these remarks Commissioner Hester M. Peirce discussed topics relevant to municipal‑market compliance such as regulatory expectations for market participants, compliance challenges facing dealers and advisors, conflicts of interest and supervision, and the importance of regulator–industry dialogue (as summarized in the event announcement and speech metadata).
The full text/transcript is posted on the SEC website at the speech page: “Hoping for Change: Remarks at the Joint Compliance Outreach Program for Municipal Market Professionals.”
The discrepancy likely reflects that the speech/event occurred on January 22, 2025 (date shown in the description) while the SEC’s newsroom record or posting metadata (pub_date) shows when the item was posted or re‑posted on the SEC site (January 22, 2026). In other words, the description lists the event date; pub_date records the website’s publication or record timestamp.
The SEC’s role in the municipal market is to oversee and enforce federal securities laws that apply to municipal securities; it supervises registered entities (e.g., broker‑dealers), oversees the MSRB, brings enforcement actions for securities law violations, and works with self‑regulatory organizations (MSRB, FINRA) to set and enforce rules and exam priorities for municipal securities compliance.