ALBANY – The village of Cherry Creek is one of 58 municipalities across the state that has been identified as fiscally stressed. According to State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, a total of 10 counties, 10 cities, 18 villages and 20 towns were identified as fiscally stressed, with 11 of them listed in the significant stress category.
The latest round of scores is based on 2015 financial information provided to DiNapoli’s office by local governments. The monitoring system evaluates local governments on nine financial indicators and creates a fiscal condition score. Indicators include fund balance, cash-on-hand and patterns of operating deficits.
Municipalities receiving a score of 45 to 55 are placed in the “Susceptible to Stress” category. Those receiving a score of 55 to 65 are placed in the “Moderate Stress” category. And municipalities with scores of 65 or higher are listed in the Significant Stress” category.
As mentioned, Cherry Creek was the only municipality in Chautauqua County to appear on the list, under the moderate stress category. Cherry Creek received a 2015 score of 62.5.
While no other municipality in the county was placed on the list for this year, the city of Jamestown was very close to the “Susceptible to Stress” category with a 2015 score of 44.2. That’s up from 40.8 in 2014 and 37.5 in 2013. Local municipalities that saw noticeable drops in their scores included the villages of Silver Creek (30.4 in 2015, down from 50.8 in 2014) and Lakewood (25.4 in 2015, down from 41.3 in 2014).
This is the fourth year DiNapoli’s office has evaluated the financial stability of local governments.
A complete, sortable list of fiscal scores for municipalities is available at the Comptrollers website.
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