Tom Falcone to be recommended to become LIPA’s next CEO

The personnel committee of the LIPA board of trustees will recommend that Tom Falcone, the utility’s finance chief, be appointed chief executive officer.

Falcone, 37, joined the Long Island Power Authority in January 2014 as chief financial officer, after being an investment banker at Morgan Stanley in Los Angeles. He was named LIPA’s chief of staff last August, after the departure of former CEO John McMahon.

The full LIPA board will vote on Falcone’s appointment at a meeting March 21.

Tom McAteer, chair of the LIPA board’s personnel committee, credited Falcone with leading LIPA through a complex rate-case proceeding before the state last year and several large bond offerings, while running day-to-day operations and boosting the authority’s standing with Wall Street. “Tom has really proven himself on the job,” McAteer said.

Falcone had been among a list of candidates that included former North Hempstead Town Supervisor Jon Kaiman, LIPA trustees Matthew Cordaro and Mark Fischl, and Julia Bovey, director of the Department of Public Service Long Island. Kaiman, who had expressed a strong interest in the LIPA job as recently as December, has been out of the running after announcing this year that he would run for Rep. Steve Israel’s congressional seat.

“We talked to a lot of people for this job,” McAteer said. LIPA last year had offered the job to another utility executive, but the candidate declined the offer and took a post with a West Coast utility, officials have said.

More recently, trustees had expressed concern that Falcone would leave LIPA, as the CEO post languished unfilled and the prospect of a political appointment loomed. “There’s no way we wanted to take the chance that he would leave us,” McAteer said. Falcone was not available for comment.

Last month, the Public Authorities Control Board tabled LIPA’s request for approval of a $930 million credit and debt offering after officials said numerous inquiries by legislative staffers and the state comptroller’s office weren’t fully answered. LIPA, which said it had answered the questions, expects to resubmit the offering request in April, and Falcone will go to Albany this month to meet with the PACB.

McAteer said he expects the full LIPA board to confirm Falcone’s appointment. At least two other legislative appointees to the board said they supported Falcone, who hails from Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, and has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

“I’m very, very pleased, and very, very supportive” of Falcone, said trustee Suzette Smookler, who recently was reappointed to the board by Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-East Northport). Trustee Jeff Greenfield said he also would vote to approve Falcone’s appointment.

McMahon made $275,000 as CEO, but when LIPA was advertising to fill the post, it listed the salary as up to $350,000. Falcone last year was paid a base salary of $250,000.

Falcone came to LIPA after 13 years at Morgan Stanley as an investment banker and a strategic adviser in municipal and utility finance. Falcone was recommended for the LIPA job by Public Financial Management, the North Carolina firm that also serves under contract as a financial adviser to LIPA.

McAteer said equally important to the committee’s decision to recommend Falcone was the widespread support for him by the utility’s staff. “The LIPA staff has really coalesced around him,” he said. “That’s a very important piece of this.”

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.