Midwest

The Columbus City Council approved an $842 million bond measure for the November ballot, and the city's school district approved a $200 million request.

The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority plans to enter the market with a roughly $425 million fixed-rate refunding of toll-backed revenue bonds in a deal scaled down due to rising interest rates.

The Pakistan-based company that last week sold $1.3 billion of notes for a controversial fertilizer plant in Indiana expects to head back to the market with the long-term financing in the first quarter of 2014.

Kansas City, Mo., plans a roughly $200 million refunding that will allow the city to streamline the Kansas City International Airport's debt under a new master bond ordinance.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed into law a $68 billion, two-year budget Sunday that authorizes billions in new-money and refunding debt.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon moved to restrict $400 million of spending in the state's fiscal 2014 budget over concerns that lawmakers will override his veto of a tax cut.

The city of Evanston, Ill. lost its coveted Aaa rating last week when Moody's Investors Service downgraded it to Aa1 in light of the city's large pension liability.

Illinois ended fiscal 2013 Sunday with a bill backlog of $6.1 billion with the state making a $1.5 billion dent in its payables over the previous year.

Breaking a weeks-long silence, a spokesman for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder told The Bond Buyer that the state supports Detroit's plan to default and treat its GO debt as unsecured. It answers a question that's been on the mind of the muni market since Kevyn Orr unveiled his controversial plan in June.

Ohio lawmakers last week sent a two-year $62 billion operating budget to Gov. John Kasich, who will sign the spending plan into law by Sunday, a day of the state's new fiscal year July 1.