Midwest

CHICAGO — Lancaster Pollard & Co., an Ohio-based boutique investment banking firm that specializes in health care, senior living, and affordable housing transactions, has hired Craig Jones,a senior-living finance veteran to help the firm begin to expand its taxable business.

CHICAGO — Chicago enters the market this week with more than $400 million of mostly new-money water revenue bonds in its first borrowing to benefit from recent rate hikes that paved the way for an acceleration of projects under a five-year, $1.67 billion program.

CHICAGO — The Regional Transportation Authority of Illinois plans to enter the market later this spring with a cash-flow issue that could reach up to $400 million depending on the fate of its request to extend an expiring short-term borrowing authorization.

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded to A3 from A2 Kettering Health Network’s $408 million of outstanding bonds.

The Ohio House Finance and Appropriation Committee this week will hold the first in a series of meetings on the state’s school funding formula.

The Missouri House advanced a bill that would require greater public scrutiny of tax-exempt bond assistance being sought by private companies along with increased financial disclosure by such firms.

A federal judge last week approved the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District’s $2.7 billion consent decree with federal authorities, bringing to a close a nearly five-year old lawsuit over clean-water violations.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing Friday announced his two appointments to the nine-member financial review board that will oversee the city’s finances as part of the new consent decree with the state.

The Michigan House Local, Intergovernmental and Regional Affairs Committee last week began considering a bill to increase the amount a troubled municipality could borrow from the state to $20 million from $3 million.

A circuit court judge last week declared unconstitutional a 2011 Illinois law requiring out-of-state companies to collect online sales taxes.