Yvette Shields

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel last week announced a series of work rule changes, beginning the process that could lead to 625 layoffs to help erase red ink in the current city budget.

CHICAGO - The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago will debut expanded pension disclosure and hold its first retail-order period this week when it sells of $400 million of general obligation bonds to finance projects in its $2.6 billion capital program.

CHICAGO - Minnesota lawmakers are expected to approve a new two-year budget in the coming days after Gov. Mark Dayton and legislative leaders agreed to delay school aid payments and issue tobacco bonds to end a stalemate over $1.4 billion in spending that shut down state government July 1.

CHICAGO - Moody's Investors Service this week said it views positively recent court rulings in Colorado and Minnesota dismissing litigation that challenged legislative cuts to retirees' pension cost-of-living increases, and expects the rulings will spur other states to act.

CHICAGO - In hopes of ending a budget stalemate that shut down Minnesota government on July 1, Gov. Mark Dayton met with legislative leaders Thursday after Dayton offered to accept a Republican plan to bridge a $1.4 billion gap through additional delays in school aid and the sale of tobacco bonds.

CHICAGO - The Lombard, Ill., Public Facilities Corp. drew $1.5 million from reserves to complete July 1 debt service payments on a portion of its $187 million of bonds issued to help finance a hotel and conference center that is struggling to remain solvent.

CHICAGO - Keeping Midwestern municipal market professionals busy this summer, Chicago and Illinois have each launched a competitive selection process to complete updated pools of qualified firms to work on future negotiated bond sales.

CHICAGO - Chicago-based public finance banker Carole Brown and two colleagues at Siebert Brandford Shank & Co. have left to join Barclays Capital, where Brown will lead the firm's Midwestern banking efforts.

Former Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser, who lost his bid for a second term, has taken a job as director of the Washington, D.C., think tank Governing Institute.

Moody's Investors Service has upgraded Loyola University Chicago's rating one level to A2 following the completion of the school's sale of its health system to Trinity Health on June 30.

Newly installed board members of the Illinois Student Assistance Commission — under fire for its oversight of the troubled College Illinois prepaid tuition program — voted Friday to oust its executive director, Andrew Davis.

CHICAGO - Wisconsin will take bids on $338 million of new-money general obligation bonds on July 20, fresh from capturing its lowest rate in recent memory on an $800 million note sale that was held last week.

CHICAGO - The Illinois Supreme Court Monday upheld the state's $31 billion public works program and the funding sources established to repay billions in borrowing, clearing the path for the planned sale of several billion dollars of new debt.

CHICAGO — The Illinois Supreme Court Monday upheld the legality of the state’s $31 billion capital program and the funding sources established to repay billions in borrowing.

CHICAGO — While its revenues have picked up, Illinois still faces "staggering long-term financial challenges" as it carried $7.4 billion in unpaid obligations — including $3.8 billion in bills owed to schools, transit agencies, health care providers and others — into the new fiscal year, according to Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka.

CHICAGO — Fitch Ratings stripped Minnesota of its coveted AAA rating Thursday, punishing the once flush state for political gridlock that has driven a reliance on one-time revenue gimmicks to balance recent budgets, and is also behind the current impasse over a $5 billion budget gap that has shut down state government.

CHICAGO — Illinois collected $3.4 billion more in base revenue during fiscal 2011 than the previous year thanks mostly to an income tax hike approved midway through the year and aided by a recovering economy, according to a new report from the state's nonpartisan legislative commission.

CHICAGO — Fitch Ratings stripped Minnesota of its coveted AAA rating Thursday, punishing the once flush state for political gridlock that has driven a reliance on one-time revenue gimmicks to balance recent budgets, and is also behind the current impasse over a $5 billion budget gap that has shut down state government.

Milwaukee-based Quarles & Brady LLP has hired veteran bond attorney Scott Bremer as a partner in its Chicago office to help the firm as it seeks to expand its public finance practice to cover the state of Illinois and local government issuers here.

Chicago's lobbyists — including public finance bankers, financial advisers, and lawyers who seek work on city bond sales — would face greater reporting requirements under a package of ethics reforms Mayor Rahm Emanuel will introduce to the City Council Wednesday.