Every year, the New York State Comptroller computes a fiscal stress score for every county, town, city, and village. According to the 2017 scores, the NYS Comptroller declared that the Town of Smithtown is one of the only two towns in Suffolk County that has zero risk of fiscal failure. While other neighboring towns had low scores, Smithtown and Shelter Island are the only two towns in Suffolk County to have a zero score.
The OSC defines fiscal stress as the inability to generate enough revenue within the current fiscal period to meet its expenditures. Fiscal stress scores were created to provide an early warning system for communities that have potential fiscal problems. To compute fiscal stress scores, financial information is submitted to OSC by local governments every year and is analyzed against financial and environmental indicators. After analyzing the 2017 financial information from the Town of Smithtown, the OSC deemed Smithtown to have a score of zero.
“The residents of Smithtown should be very pleased that the NYS Comptroller independently evaluated the Town’s finances and determined that the Town does not face any risk of financial failure.” – Donald Musgnug, Town of Smithtown Comptroller
Musngnug was also pleased with Smithtown’s fiscal stress score given the factors that must be dealt with by towns across the state.
“This score of zero was achieved despite two divergent factors pulling in different directions; rising costs due to labor agreements, health insurance increases and other inflationary increases, while being limited by the NYS 2% tax cap limitation to increase revenues. These two factors can present a challenge for future budgets if they continue to pull in different directions, but given the Town Board’s fiscal discipline, I expect that the Town’s finances will remain strong.”
The OSC deeming the Town of Smithtown to be at no risk of fiscal failure is encouraging for both taxpayers and local officials. Being under no fiscal stress will provide a sense of stability for taxpayers, as well as the ability for local officials to develop a similar plan moving forward.