DiNapoli: City of Syracuse not ‘fiscally stressed’

SYRACUSE — The fiscal-stress monitoring system of New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has determined that the City of Syracuse isn’t considered “fiscally stressed,” based on its financial performance in 2015.

That’s according to a news release that the office of Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner issued May 9.

It is the third straight year that Syracuse isn’t labeled fiscally stressed, according to the comptroller.

The system gave Syracuse a score of 32.5 percent for 2015. Local governments with scores beginning at 45 percent have fiscal-stress concerns, according to a document on the comptroller’s website.

Miner’s office cited DiNapoli’s data in the release. Both Miner and DiNapoli addressed the findings during a news conference May 9 at Syracuse City Hall.

DiNapoli’s monitoring system uses financial indicators that include year-end fund balance, short-term borrowing, and patterns of operating deficits.

“It’s meant to be an early-warning system, so that if we have a municipality or a school district, [or] a community headed for trouble, we can early on identify what those issues are and hopefully, at the local level, and with some help from the state, avert a full financial or budget collapse,” DiNapoli said in his remarks.

The system, implemented in 2013, creates an overall fiscal-stress score that classifies whether a municipality is in “significant fiscal stress”; in “moderate fiscal stress”; is “susceptible to fiscal stress”; or has “no designation.”

DiNapoli’s office bases the system on a process that DiNapoli’s auditors have been using to detect financial problems in communities, according to a description in the release from Miner’s office.

Syracuse has a “no designation” classification, which is the “most positive designation that you can receive,” Miner said.

“In the three years that we’ve been doing this, Syracuse has never been in any of those stress categories,” said DiNapoli.

Several factors have helped stabilize the city’s finances, including upgrades to bond ratings, diligence in paying off debt, “and other budget decisions,” Miner’s office contended in the release.

Contributing factors
All three rating agencies currently give Syracuse a stable outlook, according to Miner’s office.

Moody’s gives the city an A1 rating; S&P and Fitch both give the city A ratings.

S&P is short for S&P Global Ratings, a name which was changed from Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services on April 28, according to its website.

The bond ratings stem from, in part, the city’s decision not to borrow for operating expenses, Miner’s office said.

Mayor Miner also elected not to participate in the New York State Stable Rate Contribution Option, which was proposed and adopted in the enacted state budget in 2013.

The city performed a 25-year projection of what costs would have been for pension payments if the city had participated in this program, “which could have resulted in as much as $248 million in additional costs to the City,” according to Miner’s office.

The mayor has entered into three service agreements with major local nonprofit institutions, including Syracuse University and Crouse Hospital.

The total property value in the city of Syracuse is nearly $7.7 billion. Of that, nearly $4 billion, or 51.9 percent of the city’s property value, is tax-exempt, Miner’s office noted.

Advice, criticism
In his remarks, DiNapoli noted the advice that he could offer Miner’s office for monitoring finances, which includes keeping “an eye on sales tax.”

“It’s the largest single revenue source for the City and given economic challenges, lower than anticipated collections could very well impact on the City’s budget and the City’s bottom line,” said DiNapoli.

He also noted the importance of service agreements to generate revenue from tax-exempt properties, such as the agreements with Syracuse University and Crouse Hospital.

“As agreements with other nonprofits expire, the city’s ability to continue to negotiate these agreements is certainly going to be key,” he added.

DiNapoli noted that some people have criticized the fiscal-stress monitoring system as “pointing a finger” and “spotlighting, perhaps in a negative way, communities that are having a problem.”

“We want the local community to know what’s going on in their own neighborhood. But we really use this scoring to help policy makers in Albany … understand that there are big issues that are happening that are affecting all of our municipalities as a way to hopefully come up with some solutions,” said DiNapoli.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com