Michigan

CHICAGO — An effort afoot to suspend and overturn Michigan's emergency manager law could have negative consequences for the fiscally stressed local governments the law aims to help, Moody's Investors Service warns.

CHICAGO — Junk-rated Detroit Public Schools will bring $252 million of refunding bonds to market this week that feature enhanced double-A ratings based on Michigan's full-faith-and-credit pledge to repay the debt.

CHICAGO — A team of Michigan officials that is reviewing Inkster's finances voted Wednesday to accept a consent decree with local officials, a move that would allow the troubled Detroit suburb to avoid a full state takeover.

CHICAGO — A struggling Detroit suburb will ask voters to approve a property tax increase to cover debt payments on a failed film studio development that is draining the city's general fund.

Moody’s Investors Service last week downgraded to Baa3 from Baa1 its rating on Michigan’s Mount Clemens Community School District.

CHICAGO — Michigan lawmakers were scrambling Thursday to craft and pass a bill that would keep open a troubled suburban Detroit school district, while on a separate front the state battled with local school officials over the appointment of an emergency manager.

Weeks of intense negotiations with Detroit's 48 unions could be for nought as the tentative contracts don't generate enough savings to stave off a state takeover or prevent the city from going broke by April, according to a new fiscal analysis.

Fitch Ratings last week downgraded Lincoln Park School District’s underlying rating to BBB-plus from A and revised its outlook to negative from stable.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed $48.2 billion fiscal 2013 budget, unveiled last week, is a credit positive for local governments and school districts, Moody’s Investors Service said last week.

As Michigan officials near their deadline for deciding the future of Detroit, a new report suggests that one of the more dramatic options on the table — a Chapter 9 bankruptcy — doesn't offer a panacea to the city's deep-seated financial problems.

Detroit’s Cobo Center, where the North American International Auto Show is held, more than doubled its revenue in the last year, according to the agency that runs it.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing announced Friday that the city had reached a tentative agreement with its police unions, the latest in a series of labor deals as officials scramble to avoid a state takeover.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder unveiled a $48.2 billion fiscal 2013 budget that he said reflects the state's improving fiscal position, boosting spending for education and roads and making a deposit into the state's anemic rainy-day fund.

Troubled Michigan school districts may find more affordable market access under legislation signed into law by Gov. Rick Snyder that insulates certain types of bonds from the effects of bankruptcy.

CHICAGO — A Michigan film studio has defaulted on its Feb. 1 payment on $18 million of privately placed tax-exempt bonds, forcing the state pension plans, which back the debt, to make the payment.

CHICAGO — Mayor Dave Bing last week said Detroit has reached a tentative agreement with about half of its unions, which could help stave off the appointment of an emergency manager.

Michigan lawmakers have unveiled a series of bills that would revamp the state's transportation infrastructure formula, raise $1 billion of new money, and create a new bond-issuing regional transit authority for the Detroit region.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder appointed Jack Martin, a former chief financial officer for the U.S. Department of Education, to be emergency manager of the Highland Park School District.

Detroit could be required to cut its income tax rate this year under a Michigan law that was part of a deal to guarantee the struggling city a fixed amount of state revenue aid for eight years.

CHICAGO — Michigan legislators will introduce as soon as Wednesday a 13-bill package that aims to rebuild the state's ailing transportation infrastructure by raising $1.4 billion of new revenue annually.