Yvette Shields

CHICAGO — The Chicago Board of Education yesterday voted during an emergency meeting to authorize the establishment of an $800 million line of credit to boost its liquidity as it grapples with late aid payments and uncertainty over state funding levels in fiscal 2011.

Standard & Poor’s lifted the ratings of 14 school districts and municipalities in Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Ohio last week as part of the agency’s regular surveillance.

Moody’s Investors Service last week raised Missouri State University’s auxiliary system revenue bonds one notch to A1 due to the completion of a multipurpose arena that has generated additional revenue to support debt service.

The Kansas City Council late last week authorized $250,000 in convention and tourism funds to preserve the city’s option to purchase its preferred site for a new convention center hotel downtown.

Illinois regulators last week approved nonprofit Chicago-based Resurrection Health Care’s sale of two suburban Chicago hospitals to Tennessee-based for-profit Vanguard Health Systems.

CHICAGO — Illinois’ general obligation rating slid further down the scale on Friday when Fitch Ratings downgraded the state to A from A-plus, blaming leaders’ failure to tackle the state’s fiscal and liquidity crisis in the next budget.

CHICAGO — Wisconsin will competitively sell $800 million of one-year operating notes tomorrow and is gearing up to issue about $200 million of new-money transportation revenue bonds next month, while a planned general obligation refunding remains on hold.

CHICAGO — Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and several associates expected to reap $500,000 from an $809,000 consultant’s fee paid by Bear, Stearns & Co. for its role as book-runner on the state’s $10 billion 2003 pension bond sale, an aide said in testimony this week during the disgraced ex-governor’s federal corruption trial.

CHICAGO — The Illinois Finance Authority board this week gave final approval to deals for OSF Healthcare System and NorthShore University Health System that will raise new money for each and shift outstanding variable-rate debt to fixed rate to reduce market and liquidity risks.

CHICAGO — The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority will enter the market as soon as tomorrow with roughly $400 million of fixed-rate refunding bonds, the first of two sales planned this year to restructure a chunk of the agency’s synthetically fixed-rate debt to reduce bank and liquidity risks.

CHICAGO — Gov. Pat Quinn yesterday signed legislation that allows Illinois’ nine public universities to issue short-term debt in anticipation of state aid to help the schools manage through the state’s chronic payment delays.

Moody’s Investors Service has revised its outlook to stable from negative on the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics Aa2 rating due to the system’s improved operating performance.

With the final selection of jury members expected to be completed yesterday, the stage was set for opening statements in the federal corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his brother Rob.

CHICAGO — Fitch Ratings’ Chicago-based lead Midwestern analyst of tax-supported government credits, Melanie Jopek Shaker, resigned last week to take a newly created position with the fiscally stressed Chicago Public Schools as its deputy chief financial officer.

Wisconsin on June 15 will take bids on operating notes to smooth out cash flow as tax revenue flows into state coffers.

Moody’s Investors Service last week downgraded Northwest Missouri State University’s rating to A3 from A2 due to fiscal pressures on the school. The action affects $85.7 million of debt.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley last week said he would not seek a property tax hike in the 2011 budget but other fee or tax increases are a possible “last resort” as the city slowly recovers from the recession.

CHICAGO — The Illinois General Assembly adjourned late last week after passing a fiscal 2011 budget that chips away at a $13 billion deficit primarily with one-time maneuvers — including a $1.7 billion tobacco bond financing — and by pushing off $6 billion in bills while leaving a $3.7 billion hole.

CHICAGO — Wisconsin’s first recovery zone facility bonds sold this week in a $30 million transaction that will help finance an expansion of Foremost Farms’ facilities, including a cheese manufacturing facility in Appleton and a whey processing plant in Marathon County.

CHICAGO — The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority plans in early to mid-June to sell $400 million of refunding bonds as it moves to shift a chunk of synthetic floating-to-fixed-rate debt to a traditional fixed-rate structure to reduce bank and liquidity risks.