May 28 (Bloomberg) -- Most states and municipalities in the U.S. are still paying their debts, even in the face of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The CHART OF THE DAY shows a decade of municipal bond defaults, according to the Distressed Debt Securities Newsletter. This year, 16 municipal issuers have failed to make payments on $426 million in bonds. In 2008, 140 issuers defaulted on a record $7.6 billion.

Among the latest to default: the Memphis Redbirds Foundation, which in 1998 sold $72 million in sports facility revenue bonds to help pay for a minor-league baseball franchise and a 14,000-seat stadium in downtown Memphis.

Since 1999, issuers have defaulted on $24.13 billion in municipal bonds out of a total of $3.4 trillion issued, according to Thomson Reuters.

In February, Warren Buffett, the chairman and chief executive officer of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc., gave municipal bond holders something to think about. Writing in his letter to shareholders, the world’s most successful investor said the prevalence of municipal bond insurance, which in recent years had covered as much as 57 percent of the market, could increase defaults.

“What mayor or city council is going to choose pain to local citizens in the form of major tax increases over pain to a faraway bond insurer?” Buffett wrote. In December 2007, Berkshire Hathaway Assurance Corp. entered the municipal bond insurance business.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Mysak in New York at jmysakjr@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 28, 2009 06:30 EDT