Some of the people named to New York Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo’s transition team on Thursday are familiar names to the municipal bond industry.
Rochester mayor and lieutenant governor-elect Robert Duffy will be chairman and director of the transition team. Former chairman of the Municipal Assistance Corp. Felix Rohatyn, former state Comptroller H. Carl McCall, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, D-New York City, and Onodaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney will serve as co-chairs.
Michael DelGiudice, a former Lazard Freres & Co. partner who served as secretary to the governor-elect’s father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, is among the group reported to be handling the day-to-day operations of the transition. While at Lazard, Del Giudice was the supervisor of Mark Ferber, who was convicted in 1996 for failing to disclose a swap fee-splitting arrangement to his clients.
Rohatyn — who also spent much of his career at Lazard and helped keep New York City out of bankruptcy in the 1970s — will serve on a 19-member council of economic and fiscal advisers.
Other members of the council include: Frank Zarb former chairman of the National Association of Securities Dealers, the Nasdaq and the Nassau Interim Finance Authority; Bob Wilmers, chief executive officer of M&T Bank and former Empire State Development Corp. chairman; Peter Solomon, chairman of Solomon Co., former New York City deputy mayor of economic policy and development, and chairman of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corp.; and Ken Adams, president and chief executive officer of the Business Council of New York State, a lobbying group.
A 31-member economic development and labor committee includes the majority and minority leadership of the state Legislature; John Johnson, president of the Watertown Daily Times and vice chairman of the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York; Kevin Law president of the Long Island Association, and former president of the Long Island Power Authority; New York City Comptroller John Liu; and Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano.
“Fiscal reform will be a top priority of my administration,” Cuomo said in a press release. “We must overhaul our government, clean it up and pare it down while simultaneously putting New Yorkers back to work and making New York once again the jobs capital of the nation.”
Cuomo faces the challenge of closing an estimated $9 billion deficit in his first executive budget proposal, which is due in January.
