New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli / NY Comptroller
There must be a map in the situation room of NY State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli with Rockland County blinking a distressed bright red.
Rockland landed at the top of the comptroller’s fiscally stressed counties in 2012. Then the Town of Ramapo received a “significant stress” rating from the comptroller’s office due to chronic budget shortfalls, debt and continued cash shortfalls — the office of Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence was critical of the comptroller report.
“There are a lot of No. 1 spots you want to be in and this is not one of them,” Suffern Mayor Patricia Abato said, about a NY Comptroller report that put the village at the top of a list of stressed municipalities.
Both the East Ramapo and Ramapo Central school districts have received critical reports from the comptroller in the past several years, with the Ramapo Central School District audit report critical of the district’s fund balances — the comptroller said the district kept too much money in reserve. Now the Village of Suffern finds itself at the top of DiNapoli’s list of NY’s most fiscally stressed villages. One point of contention: the village, according to the comptroller, has a paucity of cash reserves on hand.
Relying on data from annual financial reports, the comptroller’s office gave Suffern a rating of 86.7%, which puts the village in exclusive company with only four other state villages out of some 482 reviewed receiving the “significant stress” rating. The rating is based on a matrix of fiscal and environmental indicators used by the comptroller’s office to monitor state municipalities and identify those that show signs of financial stress.
“There are a lot of No. 1 spots you want to be in and this is not one of them,” Suffern Mayor Patricia Abato said, in Laura Incalcaterra’s write up of Suffern’s fiscal suffering in LoHud Friday, February 7.
Mayor Abato’s office was quick to respond to the state’s report, replying that significant recent infrastructure investments in the village’s water and sewer treatment plants, plus roads improvements, have mostly accounted for the village’s combined $1.3 million deficit.
“We are well aware of the situation and believe that our debt reduction plan is a responsible one” said Mayor Abato in the statement. “The Comptroller’s Office has developed a rating system and unfortunately we don’t fit into their model.
We made a conscious decision a number of years ago to maintain our own services and we are one of the few villages that provide our own services to our residents.”
Suffern is unique among Rockland’s villages in that it provides sewage, water, public works, and police services for residents — at a cost. As a matter of policy, Suffern has borrowed 1.3 million dollars in revenue anticipation notes to help fund water and sewer operations — an amount the village has paid back each year when annual user fees are received.
That debt cycle was flagged by the comptroller’s office.
Beginning in 2007, and continued under Mayor Dagan Lacorte (although enacted by previous administrations), Suffern used some $900,000 of its then $1.2 million in reserves over five years to keep the village under the state 2% cap increase.
That debt cycle was flagged by the comptroller’s office. That reserve fund spending was also flagged by the comptroller’s office.
The economic downtown effected actual revenues collected and the village has suffered some shortfall, which Mayor Abato said will be resolved via a debt reduction plan submitted to the comptroller’s office.
Sloatsburg, along with Airmont, is one of 10 villages that will receive a comptroller’s rating later this year.
