The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority board voted today to shift some $46 million out of projects ranging from valve and hydrant replacement to pump station construction and into a fund that might be used to pay off a troubled part of a controversial debt deal.

The transfers are necessary, said authority Executive Director Michael Kenney, because the authority is having a hard time finding anyone willing to guarantee a $51 million bond that is part of a $414 million debt package entered into last year. The authority may have to pay off the bond with the $46 million and other funds, and is seeking state and federal money to cover the many improvements that may otherwise be postponed or scaled back due to the shift.

"We're just trying to give ourselves as many options as possible," said Mr. Kenney, who faces a June 11 deadline to deal with the pullout from the debt deal of New York firm Dexia Credit Local, which had guaranteed some parts of the complex arrangement.

Board member and city Councilman Patrick Dowd, a critic of the debt deal, said he's "frustrated" by the shift from projects to a potential debt payoff, but voted for it "to keep this thing afloat" while the authority seeks a long-term solution for its debt challenges.

"You can begin to see how this is going to cost us down the road, one way or the other," said Mr. Dowd, a mayoral challenger, of the debt deal. "We're taking money from long-term infrastructure reinvestment to deal with this deal."

His was the lone vote against a resolution giving Mr. Kenney and authority board Chairman Don Walko -- a state representative -- the power to enter into agreements to guarantee the debt that Dexia will no longer back. He said that would effectively mean leaving the decisions to a group of lawyers and financiers who are "the same group of people who brought you this deal in the first place."

Mr. Kenney said the debt deal -- parts of which involve ever-changing weekly payments back and forth between the authority and financiers J.P. Morgan Chase and Merrill Lynch -- has started to "trend back to normal" after a period during which unsettled financial markets caused it to cost millions of dollars more than anticipated. But parts of it are still costing the authority more than they should, he said.