Daniel P. McCoy has run Albany County’s government for more than a decade, building his political identity around a property tax rate that has fallen every year he’s been in office and a knack for winning reelection with little serious opposition.
In January 2026 he opened his fourth term with a $902 million budget and a pledge to keep cutting taxes, even as a taxpayer funded newsletter bearing his image drew accusations of self promotion from his own hometown paper.
So who is Dan McCoy, what has he built in Albany County’s executive office, and what’s behind the criticism trailing him into the back half of his fourth term as he eyes a fifth?
Quick Facts
- Party
- Democrat
- Born
- Circa 1968 or 1969 (reported as 46 years old in October 2015)
- Hometown
- Albany, N.Y.
- Current Position
- Albany County Executive
- Background
- Retired Albany city firefighter/EMT. Master Sergeant, New York Army National Guard
- In Office Since
- 2012 (County Executive); 2000 (County Legislator)
- Current Term Through
- Dec. 31, 2027 (fourth term; not up for reelection until 2027)
EARLY LIFE
Public detail about McCoy’s childhood is scarce. What’s on the record is that he was born, raised and has spent his entire life in the capital city of Albany, the county he now governs, according to his official biography, and that a precise birth date has never been published.
A 2015 Altamont Enterprise profile described him as 46 years old that October, which places his birth year around 1968 or 1969. According to a separate 2011 report, McCoy enlisted in the Army in May 1989, straight out of high school.
He later transferred into the New York Army National Guard, where he still serves today. That military record would become an early flashpoint just days into his first term as county executive.
FIREFIGHTING AND MILITARY CAREER
Before entering politics, McCoy spent years working as a firefighter and EMT, first at Albany International Airport and later with the City of Albany, where he rose to the rank of captain over the course of his career.
He co-founded the Albany Airport union, the firefighters union known as I-65, and deployed to Baghdad with the National Guard in 2005 and 2006, an experience he later referenced often on the campaign trail.
“I served in Iraq,” he told the Altamont Enterprise in 2015, “so they could have the right to vote.” He now holds the rank of Master Sergeant in the New York Army National Guard.
ENTERING POLITICS
McCoy’s rise began in the county legislature, not the executive’s office. He was elected to represent the 10th District on the Albany County Legislature in 2000, when he was still working as a city firefighter.
As a legislator, McCoy represented the 10th District, covering parts of the city of Albany and the town of Bethlehem, and was unanimously elected chairman for his final two-year term. Public detail about specific bills he championed from that era is limited in the public record.
He served twelve years there, including two as the body’s chairman, and spent three years as chairman of the Albany County Democratic Committee, becoming, per his county biography, the youngest person at the time to hold that post.
When four term County Executive Michael Breslin opted not to seek reelection in 2011, McCoy ran to succeed him. He was elected that November unopposed, taking office in January 2012.
ALBANY COUNTY EXECUTIVE
McCoy has been reelected three times since taking office. In 2015 he turned back a primary challenge from a fellow Democrat before defeating Republican F. Joseph Vitollo and a Green Party candidate, winning more than 68 percent of the general election vote.
He won again in 2019 and 2023, and is now serving his fourth term, which, according to BallotReady, runs through Dec. 31, 2027, meaning he isn’t due before voters again until then.
Governing priorities
As executive, McCoy created the Advance Albany County Alliance, the county’s first economic development corporation, to recruit employers, raise wages and grow the local job market, and has pointed to it as his signature effort to diversify the county’s tax base beyond property taxes.
He has also pushed two statewide policy fights from the county level: leading calls for New York to fully fund indigent legal defense, a reform later adopted statewide, and forming an Albany County Opioid Task Force that offers free Narcan training and expanded medication-assisted treatment.
During the pandemic, McCoy led national and statewide county-government associations, coordinating PPE distribution among county leaders, helping stand up walk-up COVID testing sites, and commissioning a book, Our Darkest Hours, documenting county-level leadership through the crisis.
Closer to home, his administration has invested in the county-owned MVP Arena and Times Union Center, expanded the Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail, and turned around Shaker Place Rehabilitation and Nursing Center after inheriting a nursing home that was losing roughly a million dollars a month.
Fiscal record and the 2026 budget
McCoy has built much of his political identity around the county’s property tax rate, which has fallen every year of his tenure. His $902 million budget for 2026, a roughly 6 percent increase over the prior year, marked the 12th straight year the rate has dropped.
The rate fell from $3.95 per $1,000 of assessed value in 2014 to $2.56 in 2026, and much of the year’s new spending is tied to redeveloping the former College of Saint Rose campus into a mixed-use property.
ALBANY COUNTY'S PROPERTY TAX RATE, 2014 VS. 2026
Albany County’s property tax rate fell from $3.95 to $2.56 per $1,000 of assessed value between 2014 and 2026, McCoy’s twelfth straight year of cuts. Source: Altamont Enterprise, Times Union.
McCoy has said he wants to pay it off without cost to taxpayers, funded instead through the campus’s own redevelopment revenue, and has also directed opioid settlement money toward addiction treatment and prevention.
That was a theme of his 2025 address, which also drew scrutiny from Republican legislators pushing for further tax cuts. Legislature Minority Leader Frank Mauriello credited bipartisan cooperation for the county’s stability but argued more could be done to rein in spending.
CONTROVERSIES AND CRITICISM
McCoy’s long tenure has drawn its share of friction, from an early stumble over military leave just after his first election to a much more recent dispute over a taxpayer funded newsletter mailed to every household in the county.
An early stumble over military leave
Days after his first election, McCoy faced questions over discrepancies in his campaign’s account of his National Guard service, after reporters compared his public statements against the Guard’s own attendance records for that period.
A separate Times Union report found he had taken military leave from his city firefighter job on a night when state records showed no scheduled Guard duty until the following morning. “I screwed up,” McCoy told the paper at the time.
Airport authority speculation
In August 2024, reports surfaced that McCoy had expressed interest in becoming the next CEO of the Albany County Airport Authority, after its board declined to renew the contract of longtime chief Phil Calderone.
The move alarmed local officials, given McCoy had appointed three of the seven authority board members who ousted Calderone. “I’m committed to my term,” McCoy told Spectrum News, adding, “I wouldn’t be fundraising if I wasn’t staying around.”
He said he intended to seek a fifth term as county executive in 2027, well before his current term is even set to expire, brushing aside speculation that he might leave for a different post.
The county newsletter
In the spring of 2026, Albany County began mailing residents a glossy, 12 page newsletter featuring McCoy. Times Union columnist Chris Churchill reported that the county paid $29,300 for the mailer and declined to say who produced it.
Churchill noted the newsletter profiled Democratic county legislators by name and photo while omitting their Republican counterparts entirely, a pattern that raised questions about whether taxpayer money had been used for partisan promotion rather than genuine constituent outreach.
The advocacy group Indivisible Albany separately reported that the county had awarded a $133,000 contract tied to the newsletter and an accompanying podcast, and that at least one of 17 other bidders had offered to do the work for a fraction of the winning price.
County officials did not comment publicly on the newsletter’s production or cost, leaving the questions raised by Churchill’s column and Indivisible Albany’s report unanswered as of this writing.
LOOKING AHEAD
McCoy’s current term runs through the end of 2027, and he has already said he plans to seek a fifth term when it expires, brushing off any talk of stepping aside for another opportunity in the meantime.
With Republicans on the county legislature pressing for deeper tax cuts and Democratic critics raising questions about taxpayer funded self promotion, both the county’s finances and McCoy’s public image are likely to remain flashpoints heading into that race.
For more on Albany County government, see PagPol’s Albany County page and Upcoming Votes tracker, and sign up for PagPol’s Albany County newsletter to follow this story as it develops.
