Midwest

Missouri-based Mercy Health will sell $355 million of revenue bonds as soon as Tuesday to cover the costs of various projects including the ongoing construction of a replacement hospital for one destroyed by the May 2011 Joplin tornado.

The Independent School District No. 832 in Minnesota is issuing bonds to refund Build America Bonds, and the City of Grand Forks, N.D. has started a process that may lead it to do the same.

Chicago’s practice of pushing off debt service for cash flow relief and pressures from a looming $550 million spike in public safety pension payments undercut the city’s advances in structurally balancing its budget, the Civic Federation of Chicago wrote.

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.

The University of Missouri Curators sold $150 million of new-money taxable bonds Monday with tentative plans to return the market next year to fund another $100 million in approved projects.

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.

Wisconsin will refund $132 million of transportation revenue bonds on Thursday, two days after state voters cast a decision on a proposed constitutional amendment that would bar future raids on the state's transportation fund for other expenses.

A foreign company has selected Illinois as the site of its planned $1.4 billion fertilizer plant with the help of some local and state financial incentives.

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.

Barraged with political advertisements about the state's fiscal mess, Illinois voters will elect leaders for two fiscal offices — comptroller and treasurer. Incumbent comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, a Republican, is running for re-election against Democrat Sheila Simon.