NFTA Officials Monitoring Push for Authority Reform BUFFALO (wned) - Officials of the NFTA are watching carefully as Albany mulls much tighter controls on the state's mass of public authorities.

The oversight legislation "would slow us down," said NFTA Executive Director Lawrence Meckler, "if we have to go to Albany for approvals."

The claim in the Capitol is that the authorities spend too much money without any controls and borrow too much money without controls and no one is really in charge.

No one is sure but there are 700 or 800 public authorities, said to owe $150 billion, far more than the state owes directly.

Since the NFTA doesn't spend or borrow money in the amounts of agencies like the Thruway Authority or New York City's MTA, Meckler believes "at the end of the day, this legislation won't be overly restrictive on us."


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