Michigan

The AARP joined with two other senior-citizen groups to file a friend of the court brief to the Michigan Supreme Court last week, arguing that the state’s new law taxing retirement income is unconstitutional.

More than 80 people, including members of Michigan's Senate Economic Development Committee, embarked Monday on a fact-finding tour of proposed sites for a controversial plan to build a publicly funded bridge over the Detroit River.

CHICAGO - Detroit hopes to come to market in early September with up to $100 million of federal capital grant-backed bonds to finance part of a light-rail system along the city's main thoroughfare.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing announced last week that the city has reached a voluntary settlement with a union, resulting in a number of reforms.

Three unions that represent employees in the Detroit Public Schools system filed a federal lawsuit over a 10% pay cut and new requirement that employees pay 20% of their health care costs.

CHICAGO - The Michigan Municipal Advisory Council is looking for the seventh director in its 80-year history as current director Mike Alandt aims to retire by the end of the year.

Upscale food chain Whole Foods and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing announced last week that the company would open a new 20,000-square-foot store in the city in 2013.

CHICAGO - Moody's Investors Service has assigned a junk-level issuer rating of B1 with a negative outlook to the long-struggling Detroit Public Schools.

Michigan’s 45-day tax amnesty program generated more than $76 million in revenue for the current 2011 fiscal year, according to the Department of Treasury.

Detroit finance director Tom Lijana announced his resignation and chief financial officer Norman White was demoted Monday as part of a sweeping reorganization of Mayor Dave Bing’s administration. Cheryl Johnson, formerly the treasurer, is the city’s new finance chief.

Oakland County will require the cash-strapped city of Pontiac to prepay the county on a monthly basis for police services that it is set to begin providing next month.

CHICAGO — The Michigan State Building Authority Tuesday will begin pricing $647 million of bonds to generate debt service relief and finance various capital projects.

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.

Moody's Investors Service last week affirmed its Aa2 and Aa3 ratings and stable outlook on $14.4 billion of outstanding bonds enhanced by the Michigan school bond qualification and loan program.

CHICAGO — After weeks of escalating debate with Mayor Dave Bing, the Detroit City Council Thursday approved a compromise $3 billion 2012 budget that restores half of the $50 million the council had trimmed from Bing's original proposal.

CHICAGO — Detroit Public Schools, which is under state receivership, plans to come to market later this year with a $200 million deficit borrowing to erase two-thirds of the red ink in its fiscal 2012 budget.

Oakland County Treasurer Andy Meisner last week announced a lawsuit against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for unpaid real-estate transfer taxes as part of the Michigan county's larger effort to combat foreclosures.

CHICAGO - Standard & Poor's revised its outlook to negative from stable on a small Michigan hospital that is facing the possibility of accelerated debt-service payments on its debt, all of which has been either privately placed with a bank or is in the form a bank loan.

The Michigan Supreme Court last week accepted Gov. Rick Snyder's request to hear a case regarding the constitutionality of taxing retirement income.

CHICAGO - Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has created a new school system that will take over the state's worst-performing schools, starting next year with 39 in Detroit.