Chicago Transit Authority CFO Jeremy Fine leaves agency

Chicago Transit Authority Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Jeremy Fine is leaving the agency, CTA President Dorval Carter, Jr., announced at a Wednesday meeting of the CTA’s Committee on Finance, Audit and Budget.

Fine will join the Illinois Institute of Technology, CTA spokesperson Manny Gonzales said. Officials at the .

Senate Transportation Committee Chair Ram Villivalam, D-Chicago, told the transit agency chiefs to expect “no votes for funding” absent governance reforms and fixes to service problems, Capitol News Illinois reported.

The next committee hearing is scheduled for July 24. Four further hearings will follow, according to a press release from Villivalam’s office, culminating in an Oct. 16 hearing in Springfield.

Fitch Ratings assigns the CTA’s GARVEE bonds a long-term rating of BBB with a stable outlook. Kroll Bond Rating Agency in March affirmed its long-term rating of AA for the CTA’s first lien sales tax receipts revenue bonds and the long-term rating of AA-minus for the CTA’s second lien sales tax receipt revenue bonds. The outlook on both is stable.

Moody’s Ratings rates the transit agency’s sales tax bonds A1 and assigns an A2 rating to the Chicago Public Building Commission’s series 2006 building refunding revenue bonds, issued for the CTA and payable from revenue received by the commission from the CTA. The outlook is stable.

S&P Global Ratings last year raised its long-term rating to A-plus from A on the CTA’s capital grant receipts revenue bonds, which are secured by the Federal Transit Administration’s section 5307 Urbanized Area Formula Funds. It affirmed its A-plus long-term rating and underlying rating on the CTA’s series 2014, 2015 and 2016 Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loans and on the Chicago Public Building Commission’s 2006 bonds.

A municipal finance industry source who asked not to be identified said Fine is known as an industry veteran and a great leader.

Gonzales said the CTA is pursuing “new, long-term funding solutions” as well as capital funding that can be used to unlock federal funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The agency remains agnostic on particular funding solutions and will work with the legislature — CTA is just looking for sustainable, growing revenue streams, he said.

“The department and leadership team will continue to focus on the fiscal cliff issue to ensure Chicagoland’s transit ecosystem is not only sustained but expanded for the betterment of our customers,” he said.