Midwest

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard has appointed a new president and five new members to the cash-strapped Marion County Capital Improvement Board, which manages the city’s sports venues and convention center.

Fitch Ratings last week downgraded Resurrection Health Care one notch to BBB-plus due to operating losses.

CHICAGO — The St. Louis Art Museum today will price $20.4 million of fixed-rate cultural facilities revenue bonds and will follow up as early as next week with $25 million of variable-rate debt — a year after postponing the sale amid the market turmoil of late 2008.

CHICAGO — The Clare at Water Tower, an upscale ­high-rise senior-living community in downtown Chicago that has struggled to meet financial ­projections due to cost ­overruns, construction delays, and ­faltering occupancy rates, drew $554,000 from its debt-service reserves to cover its Nov. 15 debt-service payment.

WASHINGTON — Alliance, Ohio, disclosed last week that the Internal Revenue Service has concluded an audit of $50 million of hospital revenue bonds it issued in 2003 with no change to the tax-exempt status.

CHICAGO — The Michigan State Building Authority is expected to enter the market Wednesday with $105 million of lease-backed, fixed-rate revenue bonds.

In spite of a recent warning by Ambac Financial Group Inc. that it may have to file for bankruptcy protection as early as the first quarter of 2011, the Wisconsin commissioner of insurance, the company’s regulator, said it has sufficient expertise to handle any eventuality and has also rejected the notion that the company should be allowed to split its books.

CHICAGO — The Chicago Board of Education plans to enter the market as soon as next week with a $254 million unlimited-tax general obligation issue that will tap its full qualified school construction bond allocation for 2009.

Fitch Ratings last week stripped the Chesterfield Valley Transportation Development District’s 2006 sales tax bonds of their investment-grade rating as the issuer is expected to tap debt service reserves to fully cover its April payment.

The Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission last week signed off on a resolution designed to keep the National Football League’s Minnesota Vikings in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome for an extra two years.