Caitlin Devitt

CHICAGO — Cincinnati-based public finance law firm Peck, Shaffer & Williams LLP has tapped bond counsel veteran Carol Olson to head up the firm’s tax and financial analysis group.

CHICAGO — Douglas County School District 1, Nebraska’s largest school system, will enter the market this week with $89.5 million of refunding bonds.

CHICAGO — Voters across Michigan approved a series of school bond proposals in Tuesday’s election, while splitting on controversial tax increases proposed by two struggling cities in Oakland County.

CHICAGO — The Indianapolis Local Public Improvement Bond Bank today will price $466.6 million of debt, marking the second piece of financing for a new $754 million public safety hospital in downtown Indianapolis.

Toledo Mayor Mike Bell last week said he decided not ask voters to increase the city’s income tax but will support a proposal giving it greater flexibility in how it spends part of the revenue.

Standard & Poor’s last week awarded a three-notch upgrade to the Lake Michigan Shoreline Water and Sewage Treatment Authority based on the strengthened credit quality of two of its members.

More than a third of Detroit’s residential lots are either vacant or contain abandoned buildings, but more than 90% of the remaining occupied parcels are in good or fair condition, according to a massive new report on the city’s housing stock that was released last week.

CHICAGO — Lincoln, Neb., would partner with the University of Nebraska to build a $344 million arena on a stretch of blighted rail yard west of downtown under a plan that will go before the city’s voters in May.

After two years of turmoil, the nonprofit health care sector might see some relief in 2010, Standard & Poor's said in a new outlook report.

The Michigan Department of Transportation says a report released this week confirms the need for a proposed $2.3 billion, bond-financed bridge spanning the busy trade route between Detroit and Canada.

Ohio will sell $146 million of general obligation bonds Monday in a transaction that includes $120 million of new-money taxable Build America Bonds and just under $26 million of fixed-rate tax-exempt refunding bonds.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati to A2 from A1 after two hospitals separated from the five-hospital system and two more have said they intend to leave. The outlook remains negative.

CHICAGO — Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm yesterday unveiled a $47 billion all-funds fiscal 2011 budget that eliminates a $1.8 billion shortfall in part by imposing a tax on services and cutting state employee retirement and health care benefits.

CHICAGO — A central Indiana task force yesterday unveiled a nearly $10 billion regional transportation plan that recommends imposing a local sales tax and building express toll lanes to help keep Indianapolis competitive in the Midwest.

CHICAGO — Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service are maintaining their negative outlooks on the nonprofit health care sector, warning that the industry faces a slew of pressures ranging from risks associated with variable-rate debt to the uncertainty of national health care reform and the likelihood of state and federal reimbursement cuts over the next 12 to 18 months.

Over the past three years, 38 of Michigan’s counties have returned their roads to gravel because they lacked the money needed to maintain their paved infrastructure — and this year nearly half of the state’s counties will be faced with making the same decision, the County Road Association of Michigan warned last week.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm Friday signed off on legislation allowing Detroit — and all Michigan cities — to issue up to $250 million of fiscal stabilization bonds to help eliminate deficits and pay off short-term obligations.

Moody’s Investors Service last week downgraded to junk the unlimited-tax general obligation debt issued by the village of Riverdale, in suburban Chicago.

CHICAGO — Purdue University in Indiana will enter the market today with $73.6 million of student fee bonds to refinance some of its variable-rate debt into a fixed-rate mode.

CHICAGO — Michigan would join a growing number of states allowing local governments to issue bonds to finance loans to residential and commercial homeowners for energy-efficiency upgrades under a bill being considered by a state House committee.