Reports

The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the New York State and Local Retirement System (the System or NYSLRS) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018.

The Fiscal Stress Monitoring System (FSMS) annually assesses fiscal stress in local governments and school districts. This report summarizes the fiscal and environmental results of all 1,589 New York counties, cities, towns and villages for their fiscal years ending in 2017.

Staten Island is one of the five boroughs that make up New York City. It is the least populous and most suburban, with one-third of its acreage dedicated to parks and recreation, and is often called the City’s “Greenest Borough.”

As of March 31, 2018, the State’s General Fund cash balance was $9.4 billion, the highest in recent history. But this cushion is expected to shrink: the State’s Financial Plan anticipates that more than $3.9 billion, or 42 percent of this figure, will be used in the 2018-19 fiscal year.

New York is home to over 35,000 farms, covering approximately 7.3 million acres or nearly a quarter of the State’s total land area.

Securities industry pretax profits grew by 42 percent in 2017 on higher revenue from core activities. That momentum has carried into 2018, with profits rising by 11 percent during the first half of 2018.

New York State has a proud history of working to make health insurance coverage as widely available as possible, to promote public health and improve New Yorkers’ quality of life.

The Enterprise Fraud, Waste and Abuse Prevention and Detection Act (Act) of 2015 (State Finance Law Section 8-c) called for the establishment of a statewide electronic system in New York to help detect and prevent fraud, waste, and abuse in government spending and avoid improper payment of public moneys.

The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the State of New York for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018.

Local sales tax collections in New York State for the first half of 2018 were $8.5 billion, a 6.0 percent increase over the same period last year. This was the highest half-year increase since 2010, growing in every region of the State compared to the first half of 2017. Factors that may have influenced this include the lowest unemployment rate in over a decade, steady wage growth in the first half of 2018 and high consumer confidence.

This report on the use of overtime by New York State agencies examines patterns over the past ten calendar years. The total cost of overtime in calendar year 2017 was more than $761 million, covering roughly 17.5 million overtime hours worked.

New York City’s economy is strong and continues to set new records. It added 715,000 jobs between 2009 and 2017, the largest and longest job expansion in the post–World War II period. After growing by 81,000 jobs in 2017, employment reached 4.4 million, a new record and 615,000 higher than the prerecession peak. Although job growth has since slowed, the City is on pace to add more than 72,000 jobs in 2018.

A number of laws govern the procurement of goods and services. Seeking competition guards against favoritism, extravagance, fraud and corruption. However, there is a well-established exception to these competitive bidding requirements for professional services, such as those rendered by attorneys, engineers or accountants, where cost is only one element that a responsible local official would want to consider. This report discusses some categories of professional services, the costs associated with these services and recent audit findings by OSC about local procurement policies and their implementation. The report also highlights best practices that local governments and school districts can follow that may reduce costs. 

The Bronx is the northernmost of New York City’s five boroughs and home to nearly one-fifth of the City’s population. Since 2010, it has been the fastest-growing county in New York State, driven by immigration.

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The Mohawk Valley Region’s dominant economic center is the Utica-Rome metropolitan area. Unemployment and child poverty rates are higher in the Region than for the State as a whole, while household income is below the State median. While the Region has lost industries and employers over the past couple of decades, there has recently been a modest increase in new manufacturing jobs. Also, the City of Utica has harnessed its surplus of affordable housing by reaching out to refugees to come and establish families and businesses in the area.

In governmental budgeting, there can sometimes be a tendency to focus on the short term. At any level of government, taxpayers and those who depend on public services can suffer if officials don’t ensure a strong financial foundation for the long term as well.

Brooklyn is the most populous of the five boroughs that make up New York City. It has a large foreign-born population, which has contributed to its success, and is one of the most diverse counties in the nation.

New York State has over 5,000 functioning dams, 861 of which are owned or co-owned by local governments. Local officials need to manage this infrastructure effectively, not only to preserve important capital assets, but also because it is a necessary investment in public safety. This report focuses on those dams that would pose the greatest risks in case of failure and therefore warrant the most careful monitoring and management. The report also discusses steps local officials and residents can take to manage those risks.

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In 2016, the State’s 109 active Industrial Development Agencies reported projects valued at $95.6 billion, with nearly $715 million in net annual tax exemptions and $10.0 billion in total debt outstanding, including conduit and other debt. They supported 4,451 projects that had created 208,707 jobs from their inception through 2016.

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On April 26, 2018, the City of New York released a modification to its financial plan for FY 2018 and a new four-year financial plan (“the April Plan”) covering fiscal years 2019 through 2022. The April Plan projects a surplus of nearly $3.7 billion for FY 2018 and a balanced budget for FY 2019.