Caitlin Devitt

CHICAGO — A struggling Detroit suburb will ask voters to approve a property tax increase to cover debt payments on a failed film studio development that is draining the city's general fund.

Officials in Columbus, Ohio, are hoping the city's gilt-edged ratings will stand out when they bring $212.5 million of general obligation refunding bonds to market for interest-rate savings.

Moody’s Investors Service last week downgraded to Baa3 from Baa1 its rating on Michigan’s Mount Clemens Community School District.

The mayor of Hammond, Ind., said last week he won’t move forward with a plan to sell the city’s water company due to costly legal fees and an uncertain market.

Cook County Commissioner and former Chicago Alderman William Beavers was indicted last week on three counts of filing false income tax returns and one count of endeavoring to obstruct and impede the Internal Revenue Service.

The state team reviewing Detroit’s finances has asked for and received a 30-day extension.

CHICAGO — Michigan lawmakers were scrambling Thursday to craft and pass a bill that would keep open a troubled suburban Detroit school district, while on a separate front the state battled with local school officials over the appointment of an emergency manager.

Weeks of intense negotiations with Detroit's 48 unions could be for nought as the tentative contracts don't generate enough savings to stave off a state takeover or prevent the city from going broke by April, according to a new fiscal analysis.

Ohio will price two bond deals Wednesday and return to market next week with $118 million of capital appropriation bonds.

Critics of Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman’s tax plan said last week the proposal would lead to a $660 million shortfall in the upcoming two-year budget cycle.

Fitch Ratings last week downgraded Lincoln Park School District’s underlying rating to BBB-plus from A and revised its outlook to negative from stable.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed $48.2 billion fiscal 2013 budget, unveiled last week, is a credit positive for local governments and school districts, Moody’s Investors Service said last week.

As Michigan officials near their deadline for deciding the future of Detroit, a new report suggests that one of the more dramatic options on the table — a Chapter 9 bankruptcy — doesn't offer a panacea to the city's deep-seated financial problems.

CHICAGO — Ohio's universities and community colleges have asked the state to approve $350 million for new capital projects.

CHICAGO — The Summit County Port Authority, one of six port authorities in Ohio, plans to significantly ramp up its bond financings to spur economic development across the northeast region of the state.

CHICAGO – School districts across Ohio, which have already suffered widespread downgrades during the last two years, will continue to face fiscal and rating pressures over the next few years, Fitch Ratings warns in a new report.

Moody’s Investors Service placed the A1-rated Omaha Metropolitan Utility District on review for possible downgrade after years of thin debt-service coverage.

Detroit’s Cobo Center, where the North American International Auto Show is held, more than doubled its revenue in the last year, according to the agency that runs it.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing announced Friday that the city had reached a tentative agreement with its police unions, the latest in a series of labor deals as officials scramble to avoid a state takeover.

The Indiana Senate and the House have both passed separate measures that would eliminate or significantly reduce the state’s inheritance tax, which generates roughly $150 million annually.