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Many of New York's communities are in fiscal stress.
Local finances are increasingly strained by stagnant tax bases, higher rates of unemployment,
aging populations, and growing demands for social services.
The problems plaguing many communities have reached a critical point.
This is why State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has proposed an early warning system to identify
troubled localities.
We are certainly seeing the lingering effects of the great recession and many of our localities
are facing decreased sources of revenue.
What we're trying to have is an early warning system so that we can know as soon as possible,
before a community is facing a fiscal crisis.
And that way we can have a more honest conversation about the status of their budgets, what the
numbers are, as a way to come up with solutions.
DiNapoli's fiscal stress monitoring system will offer objective data to taxpayers and
local officials on the financial status of their county, town, village, and school district.
This early warning system will identify local governments in fiscal stress so that corrective
actions can be taken before a full financial crisis develops.
We'll be using data that local governments already send to us every year and we'll be
looking at a variety of factors that we think are strong indicators of a municipality's
fiscal health.
Things such as their cash balances on hand, their history of operating deficits. We'll
also look at a variety of demographic information such as population trends, poverty rates,
changes in the assessed value in the community which we think help paint a fuller picture
of the fiscal challenges that a local government could be facing.
We will take that information, we will calculate a fiscal stress score and then issue that
score to both the local government and the public.
Before these measures are adopted, Comptroller DiNapoli's office will share details of the
plan with all local governments and schools districts for their review and comment.
It really will be a way to spark a conversation at the local level, and we can then also offer
the assistance of the comptroller's office - we have expertise in terms of budget analysis
technical assistance we can provide.
We are really at a time when standing still isn't going to work, the challenges are real,
the tough times aren't going to go away anytime soon.
So this monetary system is really intended to be of help to local officials and also
to have the public be more engaged through knowledge, through information, so they know
what's happening in their local communities.
To learn more about the fiscal stress monitoring system, visit our website or contact our division
of local government and school accountability.