Westchester County - Financial Condition (2018M-151) | Office of the New York State Comptroller

Issued Date

October 23, 2018

Audit Objective

Determine whether County officials effectively managed the County's financial condition to ensure the sustainability of current and future operations.

Key Findings

The County has:

Experienced planned operating deficits totaling $81.1 million over the last five years. Financial condition continued to decline in 2017 when it experienced an operating deficit of $32.2 million in the general fund.
Cash balances that have declined by 54 percent during the audit period, from $180.2 million in 2013 to $83.7 million in 2017.
A debt service obligation of $159.8 million in 2017 (7.6 percent of the budget), an increase of $25.1 million (18.6 percent) since 2013. These obligations included $11.8 million in recurring operating expenditures over the past five years that were underbudgeted for in the 2015 and 2017 annual budgets.
The general fund owes the sewer funds approximately $50 million.

Key Recommendations

Increase recurring revenues or decrease recurring expenditures so that perations are financed on a sustainable basis.
Take measures to help ensure adequate fund balance and cash flow to phase out reliance on short-term debt and advances from other funds.
Discontinue the practice of using one-time revenues to finance recurring expenditures.
Repay the advances made from the sewer funds to the general fund.

Background

Westchester County (County) is located in southern New York. It shares its southern boundary with New York City and is bordered on the west by the Hudson River and the east by the Long Island Sound and Connecticut. It is governed by a 17-member Board of Legislators (Board).

The elected County Executive is the chief executive officer and is responsible for oversight of operations. The Commissioner of Finance is the Treasurer and is responsible for the day-to-day financials operations, including general and revenue accounting, debt management, investments and the development of financial policies.

Quick Facts
Population	1 million
Square Miles	431
2017 Appropriations	$2.2 billion

Audit Period

January 1, 2013 – December 31, 2017. We expanded our audit scope period through March 30, 2018 to review appropriated fund balance and short-term debt issued in 2018.

County officials generally agreed with our recommendations and indicated they planned to initiate corrective action. Appendix B includes our comments on issues raised in the County’s response letter.