Illinois

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn chided state lawmakers Wednesday for failing to tackle pension reform as he unveiled a $35.6 billion general fund budget for fiscal 2014.

Moody's Investors Service stripped the long struggling East St. Louis school district which is under state oversight of its investment grade rating.

A judge last week agreed to allow a lawsuit to proceed that challenges Chicago's 99-year, $563 million lease of four downtown parking garages to a private consortium.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn on Monday vetoed a 2011 gambling expansion bill for lacking sufficient regulatory oversight and he warned that more revenue from additional gaming won't solve the state's pension crisis.

The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority board has approved refunding up to $1 billion of debt in a deal led by Goldman Sachs and Jefferies & Co. and assigned Morgan Stanley the lead spot on a future new-money deal that may tap the TIFIA program.

Long-time Chicago public finance veteran Tariq Malhance is stepping down as Cook County's CFO, and the current deputy CFO, Ivan Samstein, is expected to take over the top finance spot.

A bipartisan group of Illinois lawmakers put their support Wednesday behind a new pension reform package that cuts benefits, raises employee contributions, and reduces the state's burden for funding future teachers' pensions.

The Chicago Transit Authority has tapped its CFO Karen Walker to lead the agency's public-private partnership efforts and has hired Ronald DeNard from the private sector to fill the CFO spot.

The Illinois Finance Authority board advanced a handful of small direct or private placements for an array of not-for-profits.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office argued in state court that state constitutional protections against impairing retiree pensions don't extend to healthcare benefits.

Peabody Energy Corp., which led efforts to develop the mostly bond-financed, joint power agency-owned Prairie State Energy Campus, has received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission on the coal-fired plant's development.

Illinois entered the New Year with a backlog of $9 billion in unpaid bills and the strain shows no sign of ebbing, according to reports published Monday.

Chicago received 16 responses in its first market outreach to identify prospective bidders in a possible deal to privatize Midway International Airport, according to the city's chief financial officer Lois Scott.

A new Illinois pension reform proposal calls for making permanent Illinois' temporary income tax hike and directing those revenues along with higher employee contributions to stabilize the pension system.

The public agency that owns the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago unveiled plans with city and state officials Tuesday to build a new, 1200-room $400 million hotel to serve the convention center complex.

Local governments in Illinois would face tougher disclosure requirements on their debt and retiree costs under proposals announced by House Republicans designed to improve public access to the information.

The former comptroller of a small Illinois city faces nearly 20 years in prison under the sentence handed down by a federal judge following her conviction for stealing more than $53 million from city coffers over two decades.

Chicago's plans to enter the market later this year with up to $900 million of O'Hare International Airport revenue debt to raise about $300 million for the airport's capital improvement program and ongoing $8 billion runway expansion program.

Chicago has struck a tentative collective bargaining agreement with one of its smaller unions that includes pension benefit and retiree healthcare reforms that Mayor Rahm Emanuel characterized Tuesday as a possible roadmap to help solve the city's pension crisis.

Illinois will provide $250 million in low-interest loans to the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago as part of its expanded $1 billion state revolving fund, Gov. Pat Quinn announced Monday.