Yvette Shields

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel last week announced the formation of a joint committee to explore how the two governments can partner to cut costs, improve service delivery and streamline interaction with the public.

CHICAGO — The Urbana, Ill.-based health care provider Carle Foundation is set to enter the market later this month with $230 million of new-money debt, and will privately place another $100 million of bonds with two banks in a structure that lowers borrowing costs and limits liquidity risks.

CHICAGO — Voters in Kansas City and St. Louis will cast votes Tuesday on whether their cities can continue collecting one of their main sources of revenues — a 1% tax on wages and salaries — in a decision that stands to impact their credit ratings.

CHICAGO — The funded ratios of state pension plans remains on the decline even as investment returns rebound from losses. That has put more pressure on state balance sheets and tested their commitment to meet actuarially based contribution requirements, Standard & Poor’s says in a new report.

CHICAGO — The Lombard Public Facilities Corp. in Illinois has extended to April 14 its tender invitation to holders of $144 million of revenue bonds issued to help finance its hotel and conference center to give bondholders more time to review its restructuring proposal.

CHICAGO — Wisconsin lawmakers could vote as soon as Tuesday on the remaining pieces of legislation designed to eliminate a shortfall in the current state budget primarily by restructuring outstanding general obligation debt.

CHICAGO — A Chicago suburb that gambled on a hotel and conference center is now asking some bondholders to take a haircut under a restructuring plan that also raises its own financial risk in the struggling project.

Moody’s Investors Service last week affirmed Jefferson Regional Medical Center’s Baa2 underlying rating but revised its outlook to positive from stable due to its continued strong operating profitability, improved liquidity, and favorable debt coverage measures.

The Illinois Health Services and Facilities Review Board last week advanced Central DuPage Health and Delnor Health System’s merger plans by approving an ownership change.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin last week announced a $685 million agreement that advances plans for a high-speed rail network between Chicago and St. Louis.

CHICAGO — Illinois lawmakers should keep tax reform that raises new revenue on the table to stabilize state finances because a $7 billion structural deficit looms even with a new income-tax increase in place, a local fiscal review group warned Friday.

CHICAGO — As it works to reduce its reliance on endowment draws and loans to cover operations, the Illinois Institute of Technology held on to its investment-grade rating from Moody’s Investors Service on Friday, when the agency removed the credit from its watchlist and affirmed its Baa3 rating.

CHICAGO — An appeal challenging Wisconsin’s controversial legislation that strips most public unions of much of their collective bargaining powers and raises employee pension contributions and health care premiums should go directly to the state Supreme Court, an appellate panel said Thursday.

CHICAGO — The Chicago Public Schools system faces a $720 million deficit in its next budget to cover the growing costs that include teacher salaries and debt service amid chronic delays in state aid payments and expiring federal stimulus funds.

CHICAGO — Chicago plans to sell $1 billion of O’Hare International Airport third-lien general airport revenue bonds next month.

CHICAGO — With his proposal to borrow $8.75 billion to pay down bills floundering, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is pressing lawmakers to authorize $1.75 billion to $2 billion of short-term bonding to pay off Medicaid-related bills before federal reimbursement rates drop in July.

CHICAGO — The bankrupt Fairview Obligated Group, operator of several Chicago-area continuing care retirement communities, will hold an auction next month on its Rockford campus as investors who hold $57 million of mostly tax-exempt debt await word on how much they stand to recoup.

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen Monday asked a state appellate court to lift a lower court’s temporary restraining order blocking the controversial budget-repair measure recently signed by Gov. Scott Walker from becoming law.

Fewer schools made the Illinois fiscal watch list in fiscal 2010, according to the state Board of Education’s annual financial profile of public school districts.

CHICAGO — Minnesota is seeking underwriters for a summer sale of $50 million of revenue bonds in what is likely the final state financing needed to fund a statewide digital-radio communications system for public safety personnel.