New York City Municipal Water Finance Authority executive director Patrick McCoy has resigned and will return next month to his old job as finance director at the state's Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
"There are some very interesting challenges ahead at the MTA and I'm interested in being part of the solution to resolving some of those issues," said McCoy, who starts at the MTA on August 25. "It's a job that I do know and enjoyed while I was there. I'm eager to go back and help out."
The MTA has been without a permanent finance director since McCoy, a four-year veteran at the authority, left in December 2006 to join the water authority.
Looking back on his tenure at the water authority, McCoy said that he was particularly pleased about the upgrade this month by Standard & Poor's on its first-resolution bonds to AAA from AA-plus and its second-resolution debt to AA-plus from AA.
The MWFA has sold $2.29 billion of bonds since McCoy took the reins, according to Thomson Reuters data. The MTA's 2008 budget called for $2 billion of new money bonds to be sold this year.
When McCoy left the transportation agency it was enjoying multi-million dollar surpluses fueled by a booming economy and strong real estate market. Today, however, the cash-strapped MTA faces budget gaps projected to rise to $903 million in 2009 and is seeking fare and toll increases and additional help from the city and state to offset the shortfall in its receipts from real estate transfer taxes and other sources.
Rising construction costs have led the agency to delay $2.7 billion of capital projects until its 2010-2014 capital plan. The state Legislature's rejection of a congestion pricing proposal, which would have raised money to back $4.5 billion of bonds, has created an additional challenge for the authority as it tries to fund an aggressive capital program.
McCoy will replace Vinay Dayal who has served as acting finance director since January and will become the MTA's treasurer. Dayal took on the finance director's duties after acting finance director Kenneth Lind left in January to work as an attorney at Nixon Peabody LLP.
"I am very pleased that Pat's agreed to rejoin us," MTA chief financial officer Gary Dellaverson said. "He did an excellent job as our finance director in his earlier tenure. He has served the city well at the water authority and I think it shows great confidence in the MTA that he's deciding to come back."
The MWFA has advertised for a new executive director.
"We are very sorry to lose Pat," said New York City director of investor relations Raymond Orlando.
Prior to working for the MTA, McCoy worked for the city of New York for almost ten years including as manager of investor relations for the MWFA, the New York City Transitional Finance Authority, and the Tobacco Settlement Asset Securitization Corporation, Inc.
He earned his master's degree in urban policy analysis and management at the New School University in New York City and his bachelor's degree from St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa.
