Michigan

Three days before a judge rules on Detroit's bankruptcy exit strategy, the city posted a proposed order that defends the plan as conforming to all key federal benchmarks, highlighting its legal justification for favoring pensioners over bondholders.

Passage of a long-stalled transportation infrastructure package that would raise $1.2 billion in new revenue will be Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's top priority during the upcoming lame-duck legislation session, the state's budget director said.

Midwestern voters head to the polls Tuesday to decide the fate of a handful of finance-related ballot questions and the leadership of eight states, including several where debate over fiscal pressures is taking center stage.

Michigan's decade-long policy of repeatedly cutting local aid to help deal with its own fiscal problems has helped drive some of its local governments into fiscal crisis, the Chicago Fed says in a new report.

Members of Detroit's two pension systems and Wayne County's retirement system have the systems' actuarial firm, alleging that consultants used faulty assumptions that contributed to underfunding that some say helped drive the city into bankruptcy.

A proposed $3 billion rapid passenger rail system in the Midwest would cut the five-hour train trip between Chicago to Detroit by almost two hours.

Michigan should enact protection of general obligation bonds to help the state's local governments in the wake of Detroit's treatment of its GOs as unsecured, says bankruptcy expert James Spiotto.

The trial to decide if Detroit's bankruptcy confirmation plan will be approved closed with attorneys for the city defending its debt-adjustment plan as fair to creditors and capable of setting the city on a path to revitalization.

On the closing day of Detroit's bankruptcy trial, municipal research firm Municipal Market Advisors warned that the city may have just set itself up for another Chapter 9.

The Michigan Finance Authority sold $300 million of bonds for Detroit's convention center Wednesday, seeing yields on the tax-exempt debt ranging from 2.73% on 10-year maturities to 3.44% on 20-year maturities.

The trial on Detroit's debt-adjustment plan adjourned after court-appointed finance expert Martha Kopacz testified that its plan to exit Chapter 9 bankruptcy is feasible.

More details on Detroit's crucial settlement with bond insurer Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. emerged Tuesday, while testimony on the feasibility of the city's bankruptcy exit plan is expected to come Wednesday, the final day of the historic trial.

Moody's Investors Service dropped its rating on Detroit's $1.5 billion of certificates of participation to C from Ca, saying proposed settlements with insurers mean recoveries well below the Ca category.

A Michigan authority created to oversee the disbursement of nearly $200 million of state aid to bankrupt Detroit held its first meeting in Lansing last week.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes is set to rule on Detroit's bankruptcy late in the first week of November, likely putting it past the state's gubernatorial election.

The board of Wayne County, Mich. has rejected a plan to move a half-built abandoned jail site in downtown Detroit, making it more likely the county will restart the controversial, bond-financed project.

Detroit's convention center is hitting the market Wednesday with $300 million of bonds that marks its first public offering since it was taken over by a regional authority in 2009.

Detroit reached a settlement with FGIC, the last major holdout creditor in its bankruptcy case, that gives the bond insurer a mix of cash and prime downtown Detroit land to build a new hotel and condominiums.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan hired former New York City budget director Carol O'Cleireacain as a deputy mayor. She will find new revenue, work on the city's emergence from bankruptcy and on the restructuring of its massive water and sewer department.

Officials in Wayne County, Mich., are contemplating the fate of a half-built, bond-financed jail in downtown Detroit that has been abandoned for more than a year amid major cost overruns and an FBI investigation.