Midwest

The Chicago Infrastructure Trust is soliciting help from the private sector as it takes the first steps toward a public-private partnership to upgrade the city and park district’s public lighting systems.

Ferguson, Mo. lost its investment-grade rating Thursday when Moody's Investors Service dropped its rating four notches in a sign of the financial fallout from the fatal 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown.

The Michigan Treasurer will take over 16 financially distressed school districts under a new early-warning system passed by lawmakers in June.

The Illinois Housing Development Authority is searching for a new executive director to replace Mary Kenney who leaves Friday to join BMO as its director of U.S. government affairs.

The Wayne County Commission Thursday approved a 2016 budget that the Michigan county’s top executive called crucial to its recovery from its financial emergency.

Illinois Metropolitan Pier & Exposition Authority officials said they are pleased with the results of its Wednesday bond pricing, even though it paid a penalty for the recent loss of its high-grade ratings.

The Milwaukee Common Council is expected to consider at its meeting Sept. 22 the use of $47 million in public funds to help finance a new $500 million arena for National Basketball Association’s Milwaukee Bucks.

Standard & Poor’s view of the University of Wisconsin Hospital & Clinics Authority’s A-plus credit has brightened.

The Internal Revenue Service is conducting a targeted audit of $200 million of recovery zone economic development bonds issued in 2010 by the Wayne County Building Authority in Michigan to finance a jail facility that was never completed.

A federal class action lawsuit settlement between a group of bondholders that invested in a failed Missouri sucralose plant and the financial firms involved in the $39 million bond deal is nearing final approval.