Yvette Shields

Longtime Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson is retiring and will hand the reins of the post to economics professor Laura Kalambokidis in July, the Minnesota Management and Budget Department announced Monday.

Standard & Poor's raised its rating on Des Moines Airport Authority by one level to A due to improved debt service coverage ratios.

Fitch Ratings moved Monday to punish Illinois' inaction on pension reform during its legislative session by knocking its general obligation and appropriation ratings down one level and warning of the potential for further deterioration.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's administration started the week bracing for further credit deterioration in response to lawmakers’ adjournment of their regular session without solving the state's pension crisis.

The highly-regarded Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago received a first time rating of A-minus from Fitch Ratings that banks on a successful fundraising campaign to help repay debt being issued to finance a $550 million replacement facility.

The prospects for passage of comprehensive legislation to overhaul Illinois' faltering pension system before lawmakers adjourn Friday dimmed after the Illinois Senate overwhelmingly rejected a House-sponsored reform package estimated to save the state $187 billion in the coming decades.

With the clock ticking on a Friday adjournment, Illinois lawmakers are wrapping work up on fiscal 2014 budget bills but a fix for the state's pension crisis still on the table.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded a portion of Minnesota-based Northern Municipal Power Agency's debt one notch to A3.

Moody's Investors Service has lowered Mercy Hospital's rating one level to A3 due to declines in its operating performance.

Chicago is seeking to reduce the size of the $58 million award an independent arbitration panel ruled the city owes private operators of four downtown city and park district-owned parking garages.

A majority of investors holding $113 million of bonds issued for the privately owned and operated Branson Airport in Missouri have agreed to give the struggling Ozarks air field more breathing room to bolster operations.

Acacia Financial Group Inc. fired Courtney Shea – the former public finance banker hired to open a Chicago office in 2009 -- and added former banker and investment asset manager professional Jim Beck to its Chicago team.

Fresh from a new-money Build Illinois sales tax-backed sale, Illinois plans to return to the market early in June to refund $600 million in its largest issue ever under the 28-year-old bond program.

The Chicago Board of Education voted to shutter 49 schools in a move defended by the school system and board members as needed to right-size a district straining with a $1 billion budget deficit.

A one-time infusion of higher-than-expected income tax revenues helped Illinois make a $2.7 billion dent in its chronic unpaid bill backlog but the the number is expected to again climb in the coming months.

An investor with a stake in $39 million of defaulted bonds issued for a failed artificial sweetener plant in Missouri dropped the underwriter's counsel from litigation and may be zeroing in on underwriter Morgan Keegan & Co.

Minnesota lawmakers wrapped up their work on a new two-year $38.3 budget late Monday approving a tax package that generates $2.1 billion in new revenue and provides aid for the Mayo Clinic's proposed makeover of its hometown.

The fiscal condition of Chicago, Cook County, and five other local government pension systems deteriorated in 2011 by $4.6 billion, bringing their collective unfunded obligations to $32 billion.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker reduced a proposed funding increase for the University of Wisconsin system in his proposed two-year budget by $94 million and recommended a tuition freeze.

Lambert-St. Louis International Airport received a triple dose of good credit news last week when Moody's Investors Service followed Fitch Ratings in upgrading the airport's credit and Standard & Poor's revised its outlook.