Economy

Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded its rating on North Memorial Health Care and Maple Grove Hospital to Baa1 from A3 and warned of further action by assigning a negative outlook due to the system’s fiscal struggles in fiscal 2010 and uncertainty over whether improvements can be achieved in fiscal 2011.

Michigan officials said the state’s road construction budget could be chopped in half by 2012 due to falling gas tax revenues.

Standard & Poor’s Monday upgraded to BBB-minus from BB-plus $335 million of Saint Barnabas Health Care System debt.

Tulsa will issue $59 million of general obligation bonds in January to finance its continuing effort to repair and maintain streets.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is set to issue $263 million of sales-tax debt this week or next to help finance capital projects and restructure existing debt for immediate savings.

Port authorities are pushing for Congress to reauthorize a five-year program that provides them with millions of dollars of federal grants.

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.

DALLAS — Transportation officials are considering funding options for a $4.4 billion expansion of Interstate 35E between Dallas and Denton that could be the largest of several major projects in the area.

The Kenton County Airport Board was hit by two downgrades last week.

Fitch Ratings downgraded to BBB-plus from A-minus roughly $219 million of revenue bonds issued on behalf of the Nebraska Methodist Health System.

A Cook County Circuit Court judge earlier this month denied Chicago’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit that challenges the legality of its $1.15 billion, 75-year lease of its parking meter system to Chicago Parking Meters LLC.

DALLAS — A new issuer known as the Colorado Bridge Enterprise joins the December rush to market next week with $300 million of taxable and tax-exempt debt.

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 — 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.

The Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board has approved bond proposals from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith.

Ambac Assurance Corp. is close to reaching a settlement that would wipe away more than $500 million of exposure to revenue bonds issued by the Nevada Department of Business and Industry for the Las Vegas Monorail, according to its regulator Thursday.

CHICAGO — Hoping to capitalize on the lull in supply slated for this week, Wisconsin will take competitive bids Monday on $200 million of transportation revenue bonds in a deal that includes a mix of tax-exempt securities and taxable Build America Bonds.

DALLAS — Recommendations on how to finance improvements to Arkansas highways and local roads include $1.8 billion of revenue bonds supported by a dedicated 0.5% state sales tax.

California, New York, and Illinois are making a play for more than $1.2 billion of high-speed rail funding that was awarded to two Midwestern states whose Republican governors-elect plan to reject the grants.

New Jersey’s not-for-profit hospitals avoided cuts in state aid for the current fiscal year, but that could change for the fiscal 2012 state operating budget, according to Moody’s Investors Service.