Illinois

After conducting a national search, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel this week named former chief operating officer and interim superintendent Michael Kelly as the superintendent of the Chicago Park District.

CHICAGO - The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority is losing its two board members with public finance backgrounds — including William Morris, who opposed a planned rate hike — just as the agency prepares to embark on a $12 billion capital program that relies on $4.8 billion in borrowing.

CHICAGO - Illinois lawmakers return Tuesday for their annual veto session facing a crowded agenda topped by a revamped gambling expansion bill, budget changes, pension reforms and ongoing talks over whether the state should borrow to pay down its bills.

CHICAGO - The Chicago Transit Authority heads to market as soon as Wednesday with $456 million of sales tax revenue bonds and as much as $96 million of new-money and refunding capital grant-backed bonds to fund the purchase of rail cars.

CHICAGO - The two-banker public finance team that covered the Michigan market for Mesirow Financial Inc. has joined Chicago-based Hutchinson Shockey Erley & Co. after Mesirow's closure of its Michigan office a few months ago.

CHICAGO - Illinois will test for a range of investor appetites with its competitive sale of $300 million of sales-tax backed bonds on Tuesday by offering to accept both tax-exempt and taxable bids on the issue.

Standard & Poor’s has revised its outlook on Rush University Medical Center Obligated Group’s underlying A-minus rating to positive in recognition of its operating performance and a reduction in construction risks as it nears completion on a new patient tower.

CHICAGO - Warning he would veto the current version of a gambling expansion bill, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn Monday handed lawmakers an alternative plan that scales back the number of new gaming sites, imposes state regulatory control over a new Chicago casino, and sweetens fiscal benefits for the state.

CHICAGO - With its coffers bolstered by an income tax increase, Illinois has whittled down its backlog of bills to $3.8 billion from $5.5 billion at this time last year, but Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka warned in her quarterly report that "staggering fiscal challenges remain."

CHICAGO - Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel unveiled a $6.3 billion 2012 budget Wednesday that whittles away a $635 million deficit with new revenue from a series of increases in fees, fines and taxes not including property or sales taxes, along with debt refunding savings, management reforms, and spending and job cuts.

CHICAGO - The Illinois secretary of state has temporarily suspended former Grigsby & Associates Inc. public finance banker Alvin J. Boutte Jr.'s license, accusing him of providing misleading advice to the Illinois Student Assistance Commission in its $12.8 million investment in a failed Chicago bank.

CHICAGO - The Illinois Finance Authority board Tuesday advanced borrowing plans for several retirement communities and authorized up to $480 million in bonds for the University of Chicago to refund debt and fund projects, including a new research center for its molecular engineering program and astronomy and astrophysics work.

The Chicago Transit Authority Monday plans to cut 200 management positions to generate $22 million in annual savings as it tries to chip away at a $277 million shortfall in its next budget.

CHICAGO - Two Bank of America Merrill Lynch bankers based in Chicago, Dan Dean and Ivan Samstein, were among seven public finance banking professionals cut by the firm last month, sources said.

CHICAGO - The president of Cook County, Ill., fired the county's comptroller Wednesday, fallout from a $90 million accounting error that inflated the general fund and partly prompted a Moody's Investors Service's downgrade.

CHICAGO - The Chicago City Council on Wednesday approved the sale of up $750 million of new-money and refunding debt in the city's first big bond issues proposed by new Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who also submitted an ordinance seeking to rescind the city's head tax.

The board of the Cook County Health and Hospital System, the third-largest hospital system in the country, last week adopted a budget of $828 million.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Monday hosted a meeting with top airline officials to discuss the sector’s role in the city’s economy and how best to foster growth.

CHICAGO - Cook County, Ill., will enter the market beginning Wednesday with $600 million of taxable and tax-exempt bonds in its new administration's first borrowing since taking office last year.

CHICAGO - Providing fodder for critics of Chicago's heavy use of tax-increment financing, the city inspector general released a stinging report Tuesday that found a charity founded by former Mayor Richard Daley's wife received nearly $1 million in contributions from businesses as part of their TIF subsidy agreements.