State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli’s Fiscal Stress Monitoring System has designated 40 municipalities across the state as fiscally stressed. This includes 10 counties, 10 cities and 20 towns. This is the fourth year DiNapoli’s office has evaluated the financial stability of local governments. 

“The challenges facing local governments across the state are real,” said DiNapoli. “Our monitoring system has shown that for those localities experiencing financial hardship, it can be difficult to overcome challenges that have been years in the making. Local officials should be carefully examining their scores and using this system to determine how they can budget prudently and develop realistic long-term financial plans.”

The latest round of scores is based on 2015 financial information provided to DiNapoli’s office by local governments as of Aug. 31, 2016 and includes only municipalities with fiscal years ending on Dec. 31, 2015. In New York, all counties and towns, 44 cities and 10 villages have a calendar-based fiscal year – a total of 1,043 communities.

Based on their 2015 financial statements, eight entities have received the highest designation of “significant fiscal stress.” This includes the counties of Monroe, Franklin, Broome and Rockland; the cities of Albany and Port Jervis; and the towns of Tuxedo and Parish.

Fourteen communities have been listed in the second highest category of “moderate fiscal stress.” This includes: Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties; the cities of Fulton, Poughkeepsie, Watervliet and Little Falls; and the towns of Coeymans, Cherry Valley, Evans, Hempstead, Jefferson, Middlefield and Colonie.

Another 18 municipalities have been listed in the third category as “susceptible to fiscal stress.”

DiNapoli’s monitoring system evaluates local governments on nine financial indicators and creates a fiscal condition score. Indicators include fund balance, cash-on-hand and patterns of operating deficits. The system also evaluates environmental information such as population trends, poverty and unemployment. Each municipality receives a separate environmental score.

In an accompanying report that examined fiscal stress trends over the past three years, DiNapoli noted 65 municipalities have been designated as fiscally stressed at least once during the period. Of those, 28 were in stress in two of the past three years and 19 municipalities were designated in stress each year. Notably, the counties of Franklin, Monroe and Rockland have been listed in “significant” stress each year.

Other findings in the report include:

• Twenty-one local governments were newly classified as in stress in 2015 while 31 moved out of a stress category;
• More than 18 percent of counties and 20 percent of cities were in a fiscal stress category; while nearly 4 percent of villages and just over 2 percent of towns were in a stress category;
• One-third of all municipalities in a fiscal stress category are located in the downstate regions of Long Island and the Mid-Hudson Valley; and
• Sixty-two local governments did not file financial data in time to receive a FSMS score in each of the last three reporting years. This includes three cities as well as 36 towns and 23 villages.

The fiscally stressed governments identified today join the previously announced 101 municipalities and school districts that have been classified in some level of fiscal stress as of their 2015 fiscal year end date. 

To view the complete, sortable list of fiscal scores for municipalities, visit: http://wwe1.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/fiscalmonitoring/fsms.cfm

To read the Comptroller’s report “Fiscal Stress Monitoring System Results for Municipalities: Three-Year Review,” visit: http://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/fiscalmonitoring/pdf/threeyearsfsms_0916.pdf

For access to state and local government spending, public authority financial data and information on 50,000 state contracts, visit Open Book New York. The easy-to-use website was created by DiNapoli to promote openness in government and provide taxpayers with better access to the financial workings of government.