Midwest

CHICAGO — Michigan Republican Governor-elect Rick Snyder has tapped Utah’s top budget official as his new budget director, starting Jan. 1.

CHICAGO — The Wayne County Airport Authority will begin refunding more than $1 billion of senior-lien general airport revenue bonds Monday to achieve interest-rate savings and take advantage of the federal alternative-minimum tax holiday.

CHICAGO — Ohio-based public power provider American Municipal Power Inc. will come to market Wednesday with $654 million of mostly taxable debt to finance a new hydroelectric plant along the Ohio River.

CHICAGO — Two Midwestern joint-power agencies will enter a crowded field of borrowers this week with deals that include a mix of tax-exempt securities and taxable Build America Bonds to finance their share of $1 billion in cost overruns for the Prairie State Energy Campus.

CHICAGO — With headlines over its budget struggles and recent rating downgrades subsiding, Chicago plans this week to sell a good chunk of a $804 million new-money and refunding general obligation issue that was put on hold earlier this month.

CHICAGO — The Illinois Railsplitter Tobacco Settlement Authority yesterday received A-level ratings from Standard & Poor’s on its $1.46 billion issue of tax-exempt tobacco bonds set for next week.

CHICAGO — After years of planning and local front-page headlines, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, will hit the market next week with $346 million of tax-exempt and taxable debt that will tap two federal stimulus bond programs to help finance a new convention center and medical supply mart in downtown ­Cleveland.

CHICAGO — Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded to Baa1 from A3 its rating on Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport, warning that the airport faces pressure from declining enplanements and airline revenue.

CHICAGO — Wisconsin’s budget deficit going into the next fiscal biennium ranges from $1.5 billion to $3 billion, depending on who is interpreting the figures.

CHICAGO — Minnesota’s Counties Transit Improvement Board last week advanced plans for a $110 million bond sale by Hennepin County that would mark the first borrowing repaid by a special quarter-cent sales tax imposed in 2008 on the five-county Twin Cities region to support transit.