Minnesota

CHICAGO — The Minnesota attorney general’s office and lawyers representing state retirees in a lawsuit challenging benefit cuts will lay out their cases by the end of the month in summary judgment motions that seek a quick ruling.

CHICAGO — The new governors of neighboring Minnesota and Wisconsin, in their inaugural addresses this week, offered similar pledges to tighten their states’ belts and focus on job creation, but veered far apart on the issue of tax increases.

Moody's Investors Service has downgraded Sleepy Eye's $12.8 million of general obligation debt one notch to A1 due to its declining financial position.

The Minnesota Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party's Mark Dayton officially became the governor-elect Wednesday after Republican challenger Tom Emmer conceded the race.

CHICAGO — Minnesota faces a $6.2 billion budget deficit over the next two years that is about $590 million more than previously projected, according to a new revenue forecast state fiscal officials issued Thursday.

CHICAGO — Minnesota’s Counties Transit Improvement Board last week advanced plans for a $110 million bond sale by Hennepin County that would mark the first borrowing repaid by a special quarter-cent sales tax imposed in 2008 on the five-county Twin Cities region to support transit.

Minnesota's debt manager Kathy Kardell recently resigned to take a newly created position on Hennepin County's finance team, a loss for the state's finance team that comes as the executive and legislative branches are set to change party hands following the election last week.

CHICAGO — Midwestern voters next week go to the polls to decide the fate of $2.16 billion worth of borrowing requests, choose new governors, and decide spending and taxing measures.

CHICAGO — Minnesota will competitively sell $291 million of water-related state revolving fund bonds Tuesday, followed closely by a $164 million clean water issue from neighboring Wisconsin, as both seek to tap the Build America Bond program ahead of its expiration this year.

CHICAGO — Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty this week signed legislation ­providing $80.3 million in aid to ­designated federal disaster areas rocked by floods in late September and storms and tornadoes in June.

CHICAGO — The St. Paul Port Authority and lawyers for a group of investors who hold some of its 876 Fund economic development bonds will return to court Nov. 1 as litigation over the fate of $51 million of defaulted outstanding debt moves towards a trial date.

CHICAGO — A Minnesota judge this week kept alive a lawsuit filed by retirees against the state’s public pension funds that challenges legislation enacted earlier this year curbing benefit increases for current retirees.

CHICAGO — The Regents of the University of Minnesota on Wednesday will sell $146 million of bonds in two issues to fund biomedical science research facilities. The deal will offer a mix of tax-exempt revenue debt supported by a state appropriation and taxable Build America Bonds backed by the school’s credit.

CHICAGO — The St. Paul Port Authority and lawyers for a group of 876 fund bondholders squared off in Ramsey County district court Monday over whether the agency has misused revenue generated from assets pledged to bondholders.

CHICAGO — The St. Paul Port Authority and lawyers for a group of 876 Fund bondholders will appear at a court hearing Monday on their dispute over the fate of $51 million of outstanding bonds backed by the struggling economic development fund.

CHICAGO — Top-rated Hennepin County, Minn., will competitively sell $128 million of general obligation debt today in a deal that will tap both the Build America Bond and recovery zone economic development bond programs.

CHICAGO — Minnesota has selected RBC Capital Markets — the winning bidder on a $635 million new-money sale last week — to lead its upcoming sale of at least $650 million of general obligation refunding bonds.

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 — Top-rated Minnesota plans to enter the market twice this summer, beginning early next month with the competitive sale of $865 million of new-money general obligation bonds and then in September with the negotiated sale of between $500 million and $1 billion of refunding GOs.

CHICAGO — The Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission will enter the market later this month with a nearly $150 million mostly new-money sale of senior-lien revenue bonds as it seeks to take advantage of the federal alternative minimum tax holiday.