This report describes the fiscal oversight OSC provides to local governments faced with the serious fiscal challenges of budgeting with fewer resources to fund rising expenditures, all while staying within the recently enacted property tax cap.
This report seeks to inform that debate by examining the economic and fiscal histories of these other cities between 1980 and 2010, a period characterized by divergent trends for different groups of cities in the Empire State.
Just as Niagara Falls seemed to be making headway in its financial struggles, a dispute between the Seneca Nation and the State of New York has resulted in the City losing as much as $60 million in revenue. The City’s 2013 executive budget proposal called for significant layoffs, program cutbacks, and property tax increases.
Salamanca unexpectedly lost revenues from the Seneca Allegany Casino due to a dispute between the Seneca Nation and New York State over exclusive gaming rights. Although Salamanca aggressively responded to this revenue crisis, the City could run out of cash before the fiscal year ends on March 31, 2013.
Local governments’ infrastructure needs are substantial and growing, while their ability to maintain their investments in capital programs is increasingly constrained. State policy changes could help reverse this trend.
From 2001 to 2011, total federal and state aid combined, grew at an average rate of 2.2 percent annually, slower than the rate of inflation (2.4 percent).
Utica has been in fiscal decline in recent years, relying on non-recurring revenues to fill budget gaps. Its new mayor has vowed to work with the City Council and OSC to ensure that the City remains in control of its own financial future.
Gloversville faces significant fiscal challenges as it has nearly exhausted its constitutional taxing limit, severely limiting its flexibility to address unforeseen expenses and make ongoing infrastructure investments.
Sluggish growth in sales tax revenues adds additional pressure to already strained county budgets and to the budgets of other local governments that receive sales tax revenues through sharing agreements.
Thirty-one school districts statewide were designated in fiscal stress under New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli’s Fiscal Stress Monitoring System for the school year ending on June 30, 2020.
