Midwest

The University of Wisconsin has come under fire after the recent disclosure that it holds $648 million in reserves lawmakers had not previously known about.

Monsanto Co., the agricultural biotechnology corporation, last week announced plans for a $400 million expansion of its research facility in Chesterfield just outside St. Louis.

Moody's Investors Service has downgraded the city of Hayfield's general obligation rating by three notches to the lowest investment grade level.

The executive committee of the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, which oversees the region's transit plans, voted last week to switch to a new funding formula that will mean the loss of significant funding for Detroit.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing last week announced that private donations totaling $14 million will allow the city's parks and services to remain open through the summer.

The General Assembly last week approved a bill that would allow the Indiana Motor Speedway to issue up to $100 million of bonds backed by a new state credit.

Chicago settled a legal dispute with the private operators of its parking meter system over lost revenue in an agreement that modifies the much maligned lease and could save the city as much as $1 billion over the next seven decades.

Several Kansas City Missouri business owners behind a lawsuit challenging the legality of the funding mechanism for the city's proposed $102 million downtown streetcar filed an appeal of the district court's dismissal.

Indiana lawmakers were poised Friday to approve a two-year, $30 billion budget that provides $1.1 billion in tax relief over the next four years through a series of tax cuts that includes a 5% drop in the income tax.

The Iowa Fertilizer Co. expects to offer next week nearly $1.2 billion of tax-exempt, junk-rated Midwestern Disaster Area Bonds to finance a new nitrogen fertilizer plant in southeast Iowa.