By Meg Richards
The Associated Press

NEW YORK - H. Carl McCall resigned Thursday from the New York Stock Exchange board, the first director to leave since chairman and chief executive Dick Grasso was ousted a week ago because of public outrage over his lavish pay.

In a letter to interim chairman John Reed, McCall said he hoped the exchange could "move forward without being encumbered by the past." He said his resignation would take effect Monday.

An uproar over a huge pay package obliged Grasso to resign Sept. 17 and changes in the board that approved his compensation have been expected to follow. McCall had been the public face for the board as the scandal unfolded and was made lead director when Grasso left.

It was not clear whether other directors would follow McCall's lead, though dramatic changes seem inevitable for the NYSE board. Half of the board's 27 seats are assigned to executives of large investment banks, floor trading firms and brokerage houses - the very businesses that the NYSE is charged with regulating.

A former New York State comptroller, McCall said he had been unaware of important details of Grasso's $139.5 million payout of accumulated benefits and other savings and an additional $48 million that Grasso said he would forgo.

McCall had been chairman of the board's compensation committee since June, when it was revamped to include only independent directors. The bulk of Grasso's lavish pay had been in place well before then, getting approval by the board in May 1999. The NYSE revealed details of its chief executive's pay for the first time last month as part of a contract extension, provoking public fury that snowballed.

In the two-page letter to Reed, a former Citigroup co-chief executive who was named only Sunday to temporarily lead the exchange, McCall said he had tried to provide leadership during the crisis.

McCall said he would stay on through the end of business Monday, so he could preside over a meeting where directors would hear public testimony and consider recommendations on how to improve the NYSE.