Mercadien PC will continue to review the financial statements for the New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority, after the authority’s board last week again approved the outside financial auditor to appraise its books.
In a contract with the auditing firm, TTFA will pay Mercadien $18,500 for the company’s services for one year, with an option to extend the contract for fiscal years 2008 and 2009, with the fee increasing by $500 annually, according to the authority’s spokeswoman, Erin Phalon.
Mercadien also audited the authority’s finances in fiscal years 2005 and 2006, when the authority received, for each year, $805 million of appropriation revenue, the bulk of the trust’s total revenues. Appropriation revenue for fiscal 2007 totals $895 million, according to the authority’s Web site. Those funds come from gas, petroleum, and general sales tax revenues.
TTFA currently has $8.1 billion of outstanding debt. Fitch Ratings assigns its A-plus rating to the credit. Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s rate the authority A1 and AA-minus, respectively.
The authority anticipates selling $1.2 billion of bonds in the fall to finance the state’s $1.6 billion share of its $3.2 billion transportation capital plan for fiscal 2008. The federal government will match New Jersey’s bonding commitment with an equal amount of funds.
