Yvette Shields

CHICAGO - With new budgets to fund and the start of the school year around the corner, the season of short-term borrowing is in full swing for Minnesota school districts grappling with heightened liquidity challenges following the state's adoption of a budget that further delays some aid payments.

CHICAGO - One day after being accused of fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission for its role in advising five Wisconsin school districts on a risky investment scheme, Stifel Financial Corp. said it has finalized an agreement to purchase $162.5 million of school district-supported notes from Depfa Bank Plc.

CHICAGO - Stifel Nicolaus & Co. and a former senior executive fraudulently misled five Wisconsin school districts by steering them into unsuitably risky and complex investment products to fund their non-pension retirement obligations, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged in a complaint filed Wednesday.

Wisconsin last week put $233 million back into its patient compensation fund, returning a controversial transfer that helped balance previous state budgets.

The Missouri House’s Budget Committee chairman last week proposed that the state dip into its reserves to pay for recovery efforts from recent weather-related disasters, according to published reports.

Standard & Poor’s last week revised its outlook to positive from stable on Northfield Hospital’s low investment-grade rating of BBB-minus.

CHICAGO - Underwriters interested in participating in the financing team for Minnesota's proposed tobacco bond issues have until Aug. 24 to submit their proposals for review.

CHICAGO — Chicago Public Schools unveiled a proposed $5.9 billion fiscal 2012 budget on Friday that closes a $712 million deficit through a mix of administrative and program cuts, a property tax increase, and with $241 million in reserves.

CHICAGO - With no near-term plans to resurrect his predecessor's proposed lease of Midway Airport to private operators, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to leave the door open to it by asking the Federal Aviation Administration to preserve its approved slot under a pilot program.

CHICAGO - Federal authorities announced the filing in court late last week of a $4.7 billion settlement agreement in their lawsuit against the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District.

CHICAGO - Lawyers for five Wisconsin school districts trying to recoup their ill-fated $200 million investment in collateralized debt obligations to fund their non-pension retiree health liabilities are engaged in formal mediation talks with the financial firms they blame for their losses.

CHICAGO - Accompanying his announcement last week that Chicago faces a $635.7 million gap in its next budget, freshman Mayor Rahm Emanuel also released a 54-page report that lays bare the city's stark fiscal woes in plain English for all eyes, from the voting public to investors and analysts.

Kansas City Mayor Sly James last week announced the creation of a blue-ribbon Commission on Municipal Revenue.

Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded multifamily housing revenue bonds issued by the Aurora Housing and Redevelopment Authority, Minn., for the Irongate Apartments Section 8 Assisted Project deeper into junk-bond territory.

The Chicago City Council last week approved Mayor Rahm Emanuel ethics ordinance imposing new rules on city lobbyists, including public finance bankers, financial advisers, and lawyers who seek work on city bond sales.

CHICAGO - Moody's Investors Service on Monday shifted its outlook to negative on Minnesota's Aa1 rating, punishing the state for political gridlock that drove lawmakers to erase more than half of a $5 billion budget deficit with one-time gimmicks that could worsen its structural imbalance.

CHICAGO - Longtime Mesirow Financial Inc. municipal professional Lawrence Morris, its former public finance banking manager, retired from the firm last month.

CHICAGO - Chicago faces a $635.7 million budget gap in 2012 that could rise to nearly $800 million in 2014 if the city doesn't take steps to better align its spending and revenues, Mayor Rahm Emanuel warned Friday in announcing preliminary budget figures.

CHICAGO - With its seven-year-old $6 billion capital program nearing completion, the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority on Thursday unveiled a follow-up $12 billion, 15-year plan that relies on a toll increase to help repay an estimated $4.8 billion of new borrowing.

CHICAGO - New York-based Rice Financial Products Co. announced this week the addition of veteran public finance professional Courtney Knight to its Chicago office to help carve out more Midwestern business and bolster its state-level business nationwide.