Governor George Pataki and Comptroller Alan Hevesi have agreed to make marginal changes in a proposed refinancing and restructuring of $2.9 billion in bonds to finance part of the state's five-year transportation capital plan.

As we noted almost two weeks ago, Hevesi had questioned the cost of the restructuring and blocked the necessay sale of bonds by the Thruway Authority. A wire service news story on the deal can be found here. A joint news release is here.

Details are sketchy, but it appears the bond restructuring under the Pataki-Hevesi agreement will (a) be less costly in the final 15 years of the new bond issue, thus (b) raising less money for the transportation plan, which (c) will be backfilled with $300 million in reserve funds.

It's all the taxpayers' money, needless to say. A less costly borrowing is a good idea. On the other hand, tapping reserves to pay for transportation projects means ... less in reserve.