Financial Health of Suffolk Municipalities OK

The financial world had some good news for Suffolk towns, even the county itself, as bond ratings and fiscal stress scores showed them in good shape. None of the county’s towns or villages raised the eyebrows of state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli in a recent report, except the Village of Huntington Bay, which was deemed “Susceptible” to financial stress.

DiNapoli launched a Fiscal Stress Monitoring System in 2013 to evaluate the health of local governments by looking at financial indicators such as year-end fund balances, operating deficits, cash-on-hand, short-term borrowing, fixed costs, and other factors. “The system’s fiscal stress scores provide an early warning to local officials about potential fiscal issues and give the public insight into their communities’ financial health,” the comptroller explained.

Brookhaven Supervisor Ed Romaine was happy to report that DiNapoli showed the town having zero stress on its finances and another perfect zero on factors that could impact the town’s future financial health, such as population change, child poverty, and the median income of its residents. The town joins Huntington, Shelter Island, Southampton, and Southold in registering no stress. Suffolk’s other towns showed a blip in the stress numbers but none significant enough to be deemed Susceptible by DiNapoli.

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Suffolk County, which recently received an upgrade in its bond rating, also zeroed out in the fiscal stress category. According to county Executive Steve Bellone, Wall Street rating agencies cited “better budgeting” and “improved financial management” as reasons for the upgrade. Higher bond ratings allow governments to borrow money at better rates and are indications of their overall financial health.

“Ongoing efforts to strengthen governance and budgeting have borne fruit,” Moodys said in upgrading the county’s credit grade two notches. “Governance can now be considered more of a strength than a weakness.” Another agency, Fitch, stated, “The county has demonstrated its ability to control expenditures, including consolidating departments, negotiating labor union concessions, and reducing the workforce.”

“The fact that fewer local governments were in fiscal stress in fiscal year 2022 was largely due to the infusion of aid from the American Rescue Plan Act and sales tax revenue growth,” DiNapoli noted. “Sales tax collections have leveled off in recent months, and federal dollars are being spent down, so localities should plan their budgets cautiously and accordingly.”

The folks in the Town of Centerville in Allegany County have the most to worry about, as per DiNapoli’s report, coming in with a “Significant Stress” designation. The City of Little Falls (Herkimer County) and the Village of Coxsackie (Greene County) are in “moderate stress,” the next highest ranking, followed by the cities of Albany, Cortland, Glen Cove, Poughkeepsie, the towns of Dayton, Mohawk and Yates, and the villages of Canajoharie, Chateaugay, Huntington Bay, and Mohawk, which were designated as “susceptible to fiscal stress.”

With Bellone unable to seek reelection due to term limits, Romaine is making a bid for Suffolk’s top spot. He’s made Brookhaven’s Triple-A bond rating, the highest a municipality can achieve, a key plank in his campaign platform. With the latest upgrade, Suffolk’s is coming in at A+.