Illinois

CHICAGO - Keeping Midwestern municipal market professionals busy this summer, Chicago and Illinois have each launched a competitive selection process to complete updated pools of qualified firms to work on future negotiated bond sales.

Moody's Investors Service has upgraded Loyola University Chicago's rating one level to A2 following the completion of the school's sale of its health system to Trinity Health on June 30.

Newly installed board members of the Illinois Student Assistance Commission — under fire for its oversight of the troubled College Illinois prepaid tuition program — voted Friday to oust its executive director, Andrew Davis.

CHICAGO - The Illinois Supreme Court Monday upheld the state's $31 billion public works program and the funding sources established to repay billions in borrowing, clearing the path for the planned sale of several billion dollars of new debt.

CHICAGO — While its revenues have picked up, Illinois still faces "staggering long-term financial challenges" as it carried $7.4 billion in unpaid obligations — including $3.8 billion in bills owed to schools, transit agencies, health care providers and others — into the new fiscal year, according to Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka.

CHICAGO — Illinois collected $3.4 billion more in base revenue during fiscal 2011 than the previous year thanks mostly to an income tax hike approved midway through the year and aided by a recovering economy, according to a new report from the state's nonpartisan legislative commission.

Milwaukee-based Quarles & Brady LLP has hired veteran bond attorney Scott Bremer as a partner in its Chicago office to help the firm as it seeks to expand its public finance practice to cover the state of Illinois and local government issuers here.

Novi, Mich.-based Trinity Health has closed its acquisition of Chicago's Loyola University Health System in a deal that totals more than $1 billion.

Chicago's lobbyists — including public finance bankers, financial advisers, and lawyers who seek work on city bond sales — would face greater reporting requirements under a package of ethics reforms Mayor Rahm Emanuel will introduce to the City Council Wednesday.

The Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board last week denied applications from two competing hospital systems seeking to build new facilities in the growing region north of Chicago in McHenry County.

Moody's Investors Service last week downgraded Northwest Community Hospital's rating one notch to A1 due to its weakened financial performance.

The managers of Chicago's Navy Pier last week unveiled a proposed $155 million framework for a makeover of the popular downtown attraction that includes plans for a hotel, new retail shops, restaurants, and expansions of the city's Children's Museum and Shakespeare Theater.

CHICAGO — Chicago could shore up its balance sheet by cutting employees, reducing future retirement benefits, slicing the City Council in half, and resurrecting efforts to lease Midway Airport, according to a new report from a Chicago-based government research group.

The newly merged Central DuPage Health-Delnor Health System last week announced the appointment of Brett Tande to be its vice president and treasurer. He left the private sector where he was a health care banker to join the new system this past spring.

Standard & Poor's this week affirmed its AA rating and stable outlook on Cook County, which has $3.5 billion of outstanding general obligation bonds.

The Regional Transportation Authority of Illinois will take competitive bids Tuesday on $100 million of general obligation refunding bonds and in a separate transaction will further tap its commercial paper program as it awaits nearly $400 million in overdue state aid payments.

CHICAGO — The Illinois General Assembly during a special session Wednesday approved an $18 billion fiscal 2012 capital bill, reauthorizing spending for billions of dollars in projects now underway or in the works, and putting to rest concerns over a threatened suspension issued by Gov. Pat Quinn earlier this month.

CHICAGO - The treasurer of Cook County, Ill., Tuesday said she was shocked by recent figures showing that the county's local governments together owe $108 billion - nearly a quarter of which is due to unfunded pension liabilities.

CHICAGO - The University of Illinois Thursday will refund outstanding debt and raise new money for the ongoing makeover of a major student housing complex that comes as Illinois' flagship public university has scaled back on capital plans amid ongoing delinquencies in state support.

Moody's Investors Service has upgraded by one notch to Aa2 its rating on Mettawa's general obligation debt due to the village's healthy financial position. The action comes ahead of a planned sale this week of $1.9 million of bonds.