Michigan

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing last week announced that private donations totaling $14 million will allow the city's parks and services to remain open through the summer.

Moody's Investors Service said Wednesday that it is closely watching several key events throughout 2013, including five scheduled debt-service payments, for any impact on the city's already junk-level credit rating.

As Detroit embarks on a massive restructuring of its long-term debt, the city's decisions over the years to wrap nearly all its bonds with insurance may prove as much a benefit to the city as to its bondholders.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder appointed a financial review team to examine the finances of the city of Hamtramck after a preliminary review found a serious financial condition.

The city of Flint this week announced it will pull out of the Detroit water system, a move that will hit the bottom line of one of Detroit's strongest assets.

After years of struggling with $13 million of bonds for a failed development, voters in Sylvan Township approved a ballot measure to more than quadruple their township tax rate, then threw all elected officials connected to the original bond issue out of office.

Moody's Investors Service last week downgraded to A1 from Aa3 its rating on Michigan Technological University, affecting just under $80 million of outstanding debt.

Michigan law firm Miller Canfield Paddock and Stone PLC has named long-time Detroit based public finance attorney Michael McGee as its new CEO.

Construction could start as early as 2015 on a long-planned, largely bond-financed $3.5 billion trade bridge between Detroit and Windsor, the busiest trade route in the U.S.

Detroit's CFO said the $380M structural deficit that remains unsolved in Mayor Dave Bing's proposed $1 billion 2014 budget is actually good news because the deficit is "increasing at a decreasing rate."

A lawsuit challenging the appointment of new Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr has been dropped.

Michigan budget director John Nixon said the positive ratings actions from rating agencies last week were the "culmination of two years' work."

Wisconsin-based WPPI Energy will sell $180 million of new-money and refunding power supply system bonds to fund projects including environmental upgrades and transmission improvements.

Saginaw County, Mich. will become the first in the state to take advantage of a new law when it to comes to market next month with up to $75 million of pension obligation bonds.

Just days after Moody's boosted its outlook to positive, Fitch Ratings Tuesday upgraded Michigan to AA from AA-minus and Standard & Poor's lifted its outlook to positive from stable.

Fitch Ratings downgraded nearly $5.9 billion of Detroit water and sewer department revenue bonds two notches but they remain in triple-B investment grade territory.

Detroit activists filed a federal lawsuit against the state's new emergency management law Thursday, the same day the new law took effect.

Moody's Investors Service boosted Aa2 Michigan's outlook to positive, saying the state is rebuilding its reserves and should be able to withstand pressure from troubled local governments.

Moody's Investors Service last week confirmed its Baa3 rating on Memorial Healthcare and removed the rating from under review. The outlook is positive, Moody's said.

The Detroit Medical Center has dropped plans to build a $50 million outpatient facility in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak.