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 committee meeting said the CTA made a counteroffer to try to keep Fine.

"The city of Chicago owes a great deal of gratitude to Jeremy for his leadership," Carter said, calling Fine "the kind of professional who ? is not easy to replace."

Carter said during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the CTA lost almost 1.8 million riders, Fine was "the person who I relied on to explain to federal officials what our financial impacts and realities were going to be when we were trying to get the emergency relief funding that ultimately kept us alive."

"Jeremy never lost his focus," Carter said. "He never succumbed to any pressure. ? We've been through hell and back as a team, and [he has] been an integral part of that."

"You will be dearly missed," he told Fine.

"While I'm departing CTA, it remains in my heart," a visibly emotional Fine told the committee. "Serving with such a great team has been the honor of a lifetime. I'll be a phone call away, and also a quick Green Line ride just further down the system."

The CTA plans to announce Fine's replacement "in the near future," Gonzales said. In the interim, Deputy Chief Financial Officer and Comptroller Michele Curran will lead the transit agency's finance team.

Prior to joining CTA, Fine served as deputy CFO and deputy comptroller for the city of Chicago. He has also served as a board trustee and chair of the investment committee for the CTA Employees' Retirement Fund and as a board member for the Municipal Employees' Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago. From 1999 to 2002, he was a public finance officer and associate at LaSalle Capital Markets.

He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he earned his Bachelor of Science in international relations and systems engineering, before going on to receive his MBA from the University of Notre Dame.

"Certainly, working at CTA can be just like four years of battle," Carter joked as he bid Fine farewell at the committee meeting.

On his way out, Fine reported to the committee that fare and pass totals came in better than expected in May, surpassing budgeted expectations by about $1.8 million, following a similar trend from recent months.

Overall, the CTA did about $5.2 million better than budgeted expectations year-to-date. For the month of May, it was almost $13 million better than budgeted expectations.

But ridership is still below pre-COVID levels, and federal relief funds, which are about 60% expended, continue to make up the difference between expenses and revenue.

"The federal relief funding is closing the gap that was, pre-COVID, closed by additional ridership funding," Fine said, noting, CTA faces a deficit in terms of system-generated revenues.

The CTA received a total of $2.2 billion in pandemic relief funds, which is expected to run out in late 2025 or early 2026, Gonzales said. The Chicago region's three transit agencies ? CTA, Metra and Pace ? expect a cumulative $730 million budget shortfall that they anticipate will keep growing.

"Neither fare increases nor service cuts will fill the anticipated annual budget gap CTA is facing, which [is] currently estimated at approximately $500 million and growing," Gonzales said. "And though CTA ridership has consistently increased over the past two years, it's currently around 68% of pre-pandemic levels."

Fine's departure comes amid a public conflict between transit agency heads and the Illinois General Assembly over a looming fiscal cliff and whether more funding will be tied to transit governance reforms.

At a July 9 state Senate Transportation Committee hearing, the leaders of the region's transit agencies, including Carter, reportedly shot down proposals for a consolidated regional transit authority.

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.