Yvette Shields

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.

CHICAGO — The Minnesota attorney general’s office and lawyers representing state retirees in a lawsuit challenging legislation that curbed future increases in their pension benefits will return to court Tuesday to argue their sides.

CHICAGO — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has proposed a $1.12 billion capital budget for the next two-year budget cycle, down sharply from the $1.6 billion plan adopted two years ago.

CHICAGO — The Illinois Senate could vote as early as Wednesday on a revamped financing scheme, which includes a cigarette-tax hike that would allow the state to continue issuing bonds and keep a $31 billion capital budget on track ahead of a court decision on the original plan’s ­legality.

Moody’s Investors Service last week downgraded the Piatt County Building Commission’s lease revenue rating one level to Aa3 due to its high reliance on corporate-replacement tax revenue, which declined by 30% between fiscal 2008 and 2010.

Illinois pension contributions and the repayment of pension-related debt will rise by $562 million in fiscal 2012 to $6.4 billion, according to an audit from state auditor general William Holland.

CHICAGO — In a deal brokered by federal authorities, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and officials from American Airlines and United Airlines announced an agreement Monday that allows the city to begin work on $1.17 billion worth of a remaining $3.36 billion of expansion projects at O’Hare International Airport.

CHICAGO — Minneapolis Tuesday will take competitive bids on $105 million of tax-exempt and taxable general obligation refunding bonds in an offering officials are hoping will attract strong interest from investors, given the rarity of its high-grade paper and the deal’s size and noncallable structure.

CHICAGO — Illinois’ tax revenues are on the rise, fueled by a recovering economy and an income-tax increase. But the state is still grappling with high unemployment even as exports rise and the non-manufacturing sector expands, according to a nonpartisan legislative commission’s new revenue and economic forecast.

CHICAGO — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was expected to quickly sign a controversial bill that sharply curtails the collective bargaining rights of most public employee unions and requires government employees to pay more towards their health care premiums and pensions.

CHICAGO — Memphis-based financial advisory firm ComCap Advisors, a division of Community Capital, is branching out for the first time from its Tennessee headquarters with the opening of a Chicago office.