State Comptroller Finds Two Dozen Communities ‘Fiscally Stressed’

Two dozen communities in New York have been designated as fiscally stressed under State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s new Fiscal Stress Monitoring System. No community from Chenango, Delaware and Otsego counties made this list.

DiNapoli’s office drafted the ‘early warning’ monitoring system last September and shared details of the proposal with all of the state’s local governments and school districts for their review during a 60-day comment period.

The initial fiscal stress list was based on financial information provided to DiNapoli’s office by local communities as of May 31, 2013 and includes only municipalities with fiscal years ending on Dec. 31, 2012. In New York, all counties and towns, 44 cities and 10 villages have a Dec. 31 fiscal year end – a total of 1,043 communities.

DiNapoli’s monitoring system evaluates local governments on 23 financial and environmental indicators and creates an overall fiscal condition score. Indicators include cash-on-hand and patterns of operating deficits, together with broader demographic information like population trends and tax assessment growth. The scores are used to classify whether a community is in “significant fiscal stress,” “moderate fiscal stress,” “susceptible to fiscal stress,” or “no designation.”