Northeast

New York lawmakers Tuesday evening passed legislation during an extraordinary session that allows the New York Municipal Bond Bank Agency to sell recovery zone economic development bonds and Build America Bonds in a pooled issuance to generate lower borrowing costs for local governments and municipalities.

Pennsylvania borrowing remains on hold as the General Assembly may not vote until early next week on a table games bill, a measure that lawmakers must pass before approving the state’s fiscal 2010 Capital Debt Act.

Standard & Poor’s yesterday upgraded to BBB-plus from BBB $503.9 million of University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey debt that is backed by unlimited student fees. The outlook is stable.

New York State plans to market $100 million of tax-exempt fixed-rate student loan bonds this week under a new program. The New York Higher Education Finance Authority will offer the debt to retail investors tomorrow, with institutional sales beginning on Thursday.

Connecticut is in the market this week with $600 million of tax-exempt general obligation notes to finance the state’s fiscal 2009 budget deficit. Institutional sales begin tomorrow and follow a two day retail order period that began on Friday.

Bonds from the Southern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority will not be affected by a workers’ strike that halted Philadelphia’s subway and bus service beginning early Tuesday morning.

Pennsylvania’s year-to-date revenue collections are $160.2 million, or 1.8%, below budgeted revenues, with sluggish personal income tax and sales tax receipts accounting for most of the revenue gap.

The Long Island Power Authority plans to sell $200 million of new-money bonds next year, according to a proposed 2010 budget released last week. LIPA also expects to refund $400 million of outstanding debt next year.

bus system.Prendergast comes to the MTA from the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority, Vancouver’s mass transit system, also known as TransLink. He served as CEO since July 2008. Prior to TransLink, he had helped oversee infrastructure projects at Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc..

Pharmaceutical maker Theragen Inc. defaulted on outstanding Series 2005 bonds last week as Bank of Oklahoma NA, the trustee for the debt, announced that the company did not meet principal and interest payments due Nov. 1.