Nation IN BRIEF : PENNSYLVANIA : Philadelphia Loan Backed by Adviser

A financial consultant said that lending to cash-strapped Philadelphia would be a prudent investment for the city’s pension board. The short-term notes the pension board has agreed to buy from the city would be repaid promptly, J. Chester Johnson testified in a Common Pleas Court hearing. Johnson, president of Government Finance Associates Inc. of New York, was hired as a consultant to the pension board. It was the second day of hearings on a lawsuit filed by the city’s police and fire unions, which oppose the pension fund’s participation.