Yvette Shields

CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn Thursday signed a fiscal 2011 budget that deals with the state’s $12 billion deficit through $1.4 billion in cuts, borrowing and other one-time maneuvers and leaves $6 billion of bills unpaid.

CHICAGO – Chicago Public Schools treasurer David Bryant is among several members of the system’s Treasury Department who were claimed by layoffs announced this week to help trim labor costs.

CHICAGO — States are now suffering the effects of the decline in public pension fund assets from the market downturn of 2008, forcing some to reconsider benefit levels or shift spending at the expense of core services, Standard & Poor’s warned in a report published yesterday.

CHICAGO — With Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn poised to sign the fiscal 2011 budget today amid a drumbeat of negative financial news, experts recently offered suggestions for tackling the state’s budget crisis that range from expanding the sales tax base to creating a ­fiscal watchdog commission.

Standard & Poor’s upgraded the Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center to A-plus due to its strong balance sheet.

Fitch Ratings stripped Bethesda Home and Retirement Center of its investment-grade rating, lowering the credit to BB-plus from BBB-minus due to its deteriorating balance sheet in 2008 and 2009. The action affects $2.6 million of bonds issued through the former Illinois Health Facilities Authority. The outlook was revised to stable from negative.

Chicago Public Schools chief executive officer Ron Huberman this week said the district will be able to avert some teacher layoffs that would have driven up elementary class sizes due in part to the restoration of $57 million in state categorical funding aid.

CHICAGO — As nonprofit hospitals in the Twin Cities brace for a threatened nurses’ strike, Moody’s Investors Service warned yesterday that a prolonged walkout could pressure some hospital ratings if already-thin operating margins are hurt by increased costs for temporary nurses and a drop in patient revenue.

CHICAGO — The St. Paul Port Authority will start anew in its efforts to resolve its faltering 876 Bond Fund in a way that benefits all bondholders. This follows a court decision earlier this month that formally killed its plan to liquidate the fund and distribute proceeds to investors holding the remaining $51 million of debt.

CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn late last week signed controversial legislation that creates a pilot sales tax and revenue bond program to aid a proposed $378 million retail and entertainment complex in the struggling downstate city of Marion.

CHICAGO — The Regional Transportation Authority of Illinois board yesterday approved a $140 million taxable working cash-flow note issue that will help the agency keep Chicago-area buses and trains in service as it awaits its overdue state aid.

CHICAGO — Iowa, an earlier user of Build America Bonds, won't draw on that program again for two upcoming sales because the savings are not worth the worries over heightened scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service, Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald said yesterday.

CHICAGO — Illinois’ debt manager returns tomorrow from an overseas tour where he sought to whet the appetites of European and Asian institutional buyers for his beleaguered state’s paper ahead of a $900 million taxable Build America Bond sale.

Moody’s Investors Service revised to positive from stable its outlook on $87 million of A3-rated debt from Green Bay-based Bellin Memorial Hospital due to improved operating performance.

After cutting $650 million to balance the fiscal 2011 budget, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon last week announced another $300 million in reductions due to revised revenue projections.

Moody’s Investors Service has revised its outlook to negative from stable on Hamline University’s Baa1 rating ahead of its $15 million refunding bond issue this week.

CHICAGO — The Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a review of a failed investment by five southeastern Wisconsin school districts in collateralized debt obligations that were intended to establish trusts to pay the districts’ non-pension retiree health care benefits.

CHICAGO — St. Louis-based Stern Brothers & Co. last week announced the opening of two new public finance offices — in Detroit and Seattle — as part of the firm’s national expansion.

CHICAGO — Prosecutors in the federal corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich sought in testimony this week to link a loan to businessman Joseph Aramanda from consultant Robert Kjellander to an alleged scheme by Blagojevich and three associates to personally profit from the state’s $10 billion pension bond sale.

CHICAGO — Illinois’ state universities should have sufficient liquidity to meet their fiscal obligations, at least through November, under a newly approved power to borrow against late state payments and an infusion of tuition revenue expected in late August, Moody’s Investors Service reported in its latest credit outlook.