News and Information from Bond Buyer

The Illinois House heads into its final week at an impasse over a fiscal 2015 budget after rejecting on Friday a budget stripped of more than $3 billion of income tax revenue.

Government

Martha Kopacz, municipal finance expert witness to the Detroit bankruptcy case, asked the court Friday to force the city and Ernst & Young to turn over key documents that they have so far refused to release.

Municipal yields held steady on a quiet Friday as market participants prepared for Memorial Day weekend.

The Madison Metropolitan Schools lost its top rating from Moody's Investors Service after a review prompted by the rating agency's shift in its local government general obligation rating methodology.

Moody's Investors Service has upgraded Red Wing Independent School District 256, Minn.'s underlying GO rating to A2 from A3.

Standard & Poor's has removed the threat of suspending Texas City Independent School District's AA underlying rating after a conference call with school officials.

A not-for-profit St. Louis group raised the possibility of referendum drive to try to challenge the Legislature's override of Gov. Jay Nixon's veto of an income tax cut.

The Virginia Tobacco Settlement Financing Corp. plans to draw on reserves Dec. 1 because revenues won't be sufficient to pay debt service.

Houston's Memorial Hermann Health System is preparing to issue more than $290 million of bonds to finance expansion projects.

Bond insurer Syncora Guarantee’s appeal of a key Detroit bankruptcy matter was assigned to a judge Thursday.

The St. Louis Board of Aldermen signed off on an amended redevelopment agreement related to the city's bondholder-owned convention center hotel complex that helps clear the path for the complex's sale.

The Los Angeles City Council approved a $8.1 billion budget that ramps reserves up to roughly 7% of the budget and restores few services.

Ohio's controversial income-tax overhaul legislation, which critics have said could hurt local governments, is on hold until after November elections.

Travel executives say under-investment in U.S. transportation infrastructure threatens the nation's global standing.

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said it raised to A from A-minus its rating on the city of New Orleans' senior-lien sewer revenue bonds, issued for the Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans (SWBNO).

Cities will get expert assistance to help them attain a holistic economic recovery from the National Resource Network, the Obama administration said.

The Texas Permanent School Fund guarantee for charter school debt could increase risk for bonds issued before the guarantee was available, according to Standard & Poor's. But not all agree.

The municipal market was quiet and flat ahead of the long Memorial Day weekend, with a positive new home sales number providing no impetus to do anything.