Michigan

CHICAGO — Kalamazoo, Mich.-based Bronson Methodist Hospital next Tuesday is expected to enter the muni market with $200 million of mostly refunding bonds that will shift nearly all of its debt into a fixed-rate mode.

CHICAGO — Michigan legislators have paused their campaigning to return to Lansing today to try to hammer out a final state budget and avoid a government shutdown for the first time in years.

CHICAGO — Detroit-area hospitals plan to spend up to $1.3 billion on capital projects over the next several years in the hopes of creating a medical industry to help replace the city’s vanishing manufacturing base, according to a new report.

CHICAGO — Birmingham, Mich.-based law firm Clark Hill PLC has hired veteran attorney Robert Schwartz to expand its public finance practice.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm Wednesday unveiled a deficit-elimination plan that features cuts and a handful of one-time revenue measures, including restructuring a chunk of the state's outstanding general obligation debt.

CHICAGO — Midwestern bond issuance leaped by 32.5% to $39.8 billion for the first six months of the year, due primarily to Illinois’ borrowing spree to finance its $31 billion capital program and its use of debt for budgetary relief.

CHICAGO — The Michigan Finance Authority plans to enter the market Thursday to sell $198 million of one-year notes on behalf of the Detroit Public Schools.

CHICAGO — Michigan voters approved a slew of local borrowing and millage-increase proposals in Tuesday’s primary election, supporting a range of capital projects and funding transportation, library, and public safety budgets.

CHICAGO — Michigan environmental officials are hoping to divert up to $200 million from $1 billion of voter-authorized clean water bonding to replenish a bankrupt brownfield cleanup program.

CHICAGO — Michigan voters head to the polls Tuesday to choose party candidates for a hotly contested November general election that features an unusually large number of open seats and will determine control of the Legislature.

CHICAGO — Junk-rated Detroit will turn to Michigan for help in issuing up to $100 million of general obligation bonds to finance the purchase and renovation of a former MGM Grand casino into a new police headquarters.

The Detroit Economic Development Corp. last week approved an inducement resolution to issue $15 million of recovery zone facility bonds to finance construction of a new medical office building in the city.

CHICAGO — The Detroit City Council heard testimony but did not vote Tuesday on a measure that would ask voters whether they want to abolish the Detroit Public School Board and place the troubled school system under mayoral control.

CHICAGO — Detroit Public Schools is facing a $363 million structural deficit — with officials warning it could get worse — as the district begins a new fiscal year today.

CHICAGO — Michigan lawmakers will fail to meet their self-imposed deadline of July 1 to complete a fiscal 2011 budget.

CHICAGO — Local units of government in Michigan grappling with falling revenue from state aid and local property tax collections will soon have a place to turn for help in undertaking cost-saving consolidation efforts.

CHICAGO — In its first meeting after the consolidation of 10 state bond-issuing authorities into a single agency, the newly formed Michigan Finance Authority board approved a pair of transactions and acted on administrative matters.

CHICAGO — The Oakland County Economic Development Corp. will price $28 million of recovery zone facility bonds — most of which will be privately placed — to finance a new film studio in an abandoned General Motors Corp. plant in Pontiac, Mich.

CHICAGO — The worst could be over for Michigan, according to economists and fiscal officials who gathered in Lansing Friday for the state’s twice-annual revenue estimating conference.

CHICAGO — The Michigan House is expected to vote Tuesday on a bill that would advance a controversial $2 billion bond-funded bridge spanning the busy Detroit-Canada trade route.