New York

Fitch Ratings yesterday upgraded the Long Island Power Authority’s $5.9 billion of revenue debt to A from A-minus. The rating agency also changed the outlook stable from negative.

Lazard Ltd. has hired Thomas Suozzi, former executive of Nassau County, N.Y., as a senior adviser on partnerships between private infrastructure companies and state and local governments.

New York Gov. David Paterson held fast to his spending cuts and revenue proposals as the Legislature Monday evening passed a $4.61 billion emergency budget that will allow the state to continue paying its bills through April 25.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York attorney general reached settlement agreements with investment adviser Quadrangle Group LLC and others for allegedly engaging in pay-to-play practices with state officials and their consultants to obtain investment business from New York’s pension fund.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo Thursday recouped nearly $12 million for the Empire State from four firms and one individual connected to illegal investment actions of the state’s pension fund.

Former Fidelity Capital Markets public finance banker Mark T. Kim has joined the New York City comptroller’s office.

The New York Municipal Bond Bank Agency plans to market a pooled bond financing on behalf of six municipalities next month — the second such deal from the issuer in recent months.

Moody's Investors Service Friday placed the Battery Park City Authority on watch for a possible downgrade, citing an agreement under which the agency would transfer surplus funds to New York State and New York City.

New York City's revenue forecasting should be handled by the comptroller's office rather than the mayor's office, Comptroller John Liu said last week.

New York Gov. David Paterson last week appointed Brian Lawlor to head the state's housing agency and its housing bond agencies.

Even as a budget agreement eludes New York lawmakers, both houses of the Legislature have found common ground in seeking a shift to generally accepted accounting principles budgeting.

New York City and New York State have agreed to each sweep $200 million from the Battery Park City Authority to help close their budget gaps. The agreement also provides funds to provide mortgages for affordable housing projects.

New York State has masked the actual size of its deficits through maneuvers that provide merely temporary budget relief, the state comptroller said in a report yesterday.

New York State and New York City’s borrowing authorities plan to issue up to $6.17 billion of new-money bonds in the second quarter, according to a forward issuance calendar released by the state comptroller’s office last week. Additionally, issuers plan $1.53 billion of refundings and $186 million of conversions.

The Dormitory Authority of the State of New York gave final approval to $791.3 million of bonds at its board meeting yesterday, while also creating a finance committee as required under a public authorities reform measure enacted last year.

About one-third of New York’s 114 industrial development agencies have joined in a lawsuit challenging assessments on their revenue by the state. Attorneys for the New York State Economic Development Council, a trade group representing economic development professionals, filed the action in state Supreme Court in Albany on Friday.

The New York Senate yesterday passed emergency spending bills to keep the government running as it appears inevitable the state will not have a new budget approved in time for the start of the new fiscal year on Thursday.

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority liked Build America Bonds so much that the majority of its debt issues over the past 13 months have been the new taxable bonds.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plan to competitively sell $116.8 million of bonds on Wednesday to refund outstanding debt.

Public finance veteran Robert Foran will today be named the new chief financial officer of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Foran, 53, a public finance banker for nearly three decades, has been working with MTA since the 1980s and was a key figure in its $15 billion restructuring that began in 2002.