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Fifty-nine school districts have been designated as fiscally stressed under New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli's Fiscal Stress Monitoring System. This is a decrease from 82 districts that were listed in stress last year and 90 the year prior.  No school districts in Tompkins County were designated as fiscally stressed.

This is the fourth year DiNapoli's office has assessed and scored the financial stability of school districts. The latest round of scoring designated two school districts in "significant fiscal stress," nine in "moderate fiscal stress" and the remaining 48 as "susceptible to fiscal stress." The scores are based on the evaluation of 671 school districts with fiscal years ending on June 30, 2016.

"Fiscal stress in many school districts has declined, especially for those in the most severe condition," said DiNapoli. "School officials should be commended for working to keep their districts out of financial harm, but should be careful not to amass excessive levels of fund balance in order to do so."

Using financial indicators that include year-end fund balance, short-term borrowing and patterns of operating deficits, DiNapoli's monitoring system creates an overall fiscal stress score which classifies whether a district is in "significant fiscal stress," in "moderate fiscal stress," is "susceptible to fiscal stress," or has "no designation."

The two school districts that were classified in "significant stress" were: Hempstead (Nassau) and Wyandanch (Suffolk).

The nine districts considered in "moderate fiscal stress" were Amityville (Suffolk), Bedford (Westchester), Clifton-Fine (St. Lawrence), Cortland (Cortland), East Aurora (Erie), East Ramapo (Rockland), Eldred (Sullivan), Hudson Falls (Washington) and Utica (Oneida).

According to a report released by DiNapoli today in conjunction with the fiscal stress scores, school districts found to be in fiscal stress are more likely to have a high level of poverty and low graduation rates.

The Comptroller's report also noted a number of significant improvements among several school districts. For example, the districts of Watervliet (Albany), Poughkeepsie (Dutchess), Jamestown (Chautauqua) and Corinth (Saratoga) all experienced decreases of 40 percentage points or more in their fiscal stress score.

The scores are based on financial information submitted as part of each district's ST-3 financial report filed with the State Education Department as of Dec. 31, 2016. Today's announcement does not include scores for the dependent school districts in the "Big Four" cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers. Information for these districts will be incorporated into the scoring for their respective cities later this year. The monitoring system does not score New York City.

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