Economy

After two years of debate on how to finance transportation needs, voters in Hays County south of Austin will decide whether to issue $207 million of road bonds.

CHICAGO - Chicago's chief financial officer called the $2.521 billion price a private consortium will pay to operate Midway Airport for 99 years a "good value" for the city that may not get any better even if delayed until the current international fiscal crisis subsides.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick last week called for dismantling the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and merging it into another state transportation agency. Meanwhile, one MassPike board member is calling for immediate toll hikes to help boost debt service coverage on $2.4 billion of debt.

WASHINGTON - Investors who bought $55.5 million of bonds to help construct the Glebe, an upscale continuing-care retirement community near Roanoke, Va., face major uncertainties with their investments after the facility defaulted on a $15 million bond payment in July because its revenues came in lower than anticipated.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office last week found that the Federal Aviation Administration did not have the legal authority to auction flight slots. The GAO’s decision handed a victory to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which had threatened to prevent flights from landing if they used auctioned slots.

Massachusetts’ landmark health care program will receive an additional $21.2 billion of federal reimbursement over the next three years, a $4.3 billion boost in federal funding.

LAS VEGAS - What is clear: the landscape for nonprofit health care financing has changed. What is not so clear: what that landscape will look like after the current credit crisis wanes, according to participants last week at The Bond Buyer's Nonprofit Hospital Finance Conference here.

The deep freeze that the primary market has endured the last two weeks may begin to thaw a bit this week, aided by the much-anticipated news on Friday that the House approved the $700 billion financial rescue plan. But some market participants said it was too early to expect new-issue business to bounce back quickly given that the nation's economic crisis is far from over.

LAS VEGAS - The ongoing crisis in the markets was evident yesterday in the hallways and at the podium of The Bond Buyer's annual Nonprofit Hospital Finance Conference here.

Pacific Ethanol Inc. Monday announced that it had launched production at its new Stockton facility.

The capital needs of airports across the country are expected to grow significantly during the next five years, the Federal Aviation Administration warned in a report issued yesterday.

CHICAGO - ThedaCare Inc. and Marquette University - two Wisconsin-based tax-exempt borrowers that sought first-time ratings - joined the list of issuers with deals on hold this week due to the rise in long-term interest rates, although Marquette did move forward with its floating-rate tranches due to its cash needs.

Orange County supervisors will vote Tuesday to send out requests for proposals to underwriters for upcoming bond issues for John Wayne Airport.

CHICAGO - Indiana-based Sisters of St. Francis Health Services Inc. hopes to try again soon to get a long-postponed new-money deal sold, possibly by next week.

DALLAS — Baylor Health Care System recently unveiled plans to build a $350 million cancer hospital and cancer outpatient center at its main campus in downtown Dallas.

New Jersey received $7.4 billion of good news this week as an outside actuarial report now pegs the state's unfunded other post-employment benefit liability at $50.65 billion, down from the previous years' shortfall of $58.59 billion.

Florida’s controversial first leasing of an existing toll road is bogged down due to the volume of questions and comments received from the six consortiums asked to submit bids, the Florida Department of Transportation said in a notice on Monday.

While a $12.8 billion long-term lease bid for the Pennsylvania Turnpike expired this week, Gov. Edward Rendell plans to revisit the issue in the next two-year legislative session.

President Bush has signed into law a short-term appropriations bill to keep the federal government in operation through March 6, and a six-month stopgap measure that will fund the Federal Aviation Administration and its airport construction grant program through the end of that month. Both laws include bond-related provisions totaling more than $8 billion.

CHICAGO - After postponing a planned bond issue this week amid ongoing market turmoil, the Wayne County Airport Authority - operator of Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport - hopes to enter a more stable market within the next few weeks with its third refunding issue in the last five months.