Caitlin Devitt

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.

With tobacco consumption continuing to decline, Fitch Ratings last week downgraded $9 billion of tobacco bonds issued by Ohio and California after the two states were forced to draw on reserves to make their Dec. 1 payments.

CHICAGO — The market for privately placed municipal debt came out of the shadows in 2011.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder unveiled a $48.2 billion fiscal 2013 budget that he said reflects the state's improving fiscal position, boosting spending for education and roads and making a deposit into the state's anemic rainy-day fund.

Troubled Michigan school districts may find more affordable market access under legislation signed into law by Gov. Rick Snyder that insulates certain types of bonds from the effects of bankruptcy.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich defended his push to privatize the Ohio Turnpike and called for the proposal's critics to "chill out" during his annual state of the state address Tuesday afternoon.

Local Democratic officials from northeast Ohio who are opposed to Gov. John Kasich’s proposal to lease the Ohio Turnpike said last week they would launch their own study of the privatization plan.

Nebraska lawmakers are eying a plan that would allow community colleges to use property tax dollars to back revenue bonds for capital improvements.

Legislation that would pave the way for a $1.3 billion bond-funded regional transit system for central Indiana is likely dead after the Senate president said last week he would not advance the bill.

CHICAGO — Cleveland Hopkins International Airport will enter the market Wednesday with $241 million of airport system refunding bonds.

CHICAGO — A Michigan film studio has defaulted on its Feb. 1 payment on $18 million of privately placed tax-exempt bonds, forcing the state pension plans, which back the debt, to make the payment.