Midwest

CHICAGO - A few years after picking up and moving from Chicago, where he worked for a major accounting firm, to settle in a small Colorado town, W. Martin "Wally" Morics was itching for more of a challenge.

CHICAGO — Detroit Public Schools, which is under state receivership, plans to come to market later this year with a $200 million deficit borrowing to erase two-thirds of the red ink in its fiscal 2012 budget.

Gov. Scott Walker signed Wisconsin's new, two-year $66 billion budget into law on Sunday after using his veto pen on 50 items. He mostly left intact the budget passed earlier this month, which closely resembled his original plan that dealt with a $3 billion deficit primarily with cuts.

St. Louis saw strong demand among institutional buyers for its $30 million refunding last week of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport revenue bonds and achieved 4.6% in net present-value savings, city Comptroller Darlene Green said.

Oakland County Treasurer Andy Meisner last week announced a lawsuit against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for unpaid real-estate transfer taxes as part of the Michigan county's larger effort to combat foreclosures.

Gov. Mitch Daniels Wednesday will tour three Indiana cities to mark the five-year anniversary of Major Moves, the largest infrastructure program in the state's history, which was financed in part with the $3.8 billion Indiana Toll Road lease.

The newly merged Central DuPage Health-Delnor Health System last week announced the appointment of Brett Tande to be its vice president and treasurer. He left the private sector where he was a health care banker to join the new system this past spring.

Standard & Poor's this week affirmed its AA rating and stable outlook on Cook County, which has $3.5 billion of outstanding general obligation bonds.

The Regional Transportation Authority of Illinois will take competitive bids Tuesday on $100 million of general obligation refunding bonds and in a separate transaction will further tap its commercial paper program as it awaits nearly $400 million in overdue state aid payments.

The Omaha Public Power District, which runs Nebraska's Fort Calhoun nuclear plant, is responding to the current flooding crisis as one would expect from the fourth-highest rated utility in the United States, credit analysts say.