State Comptroller's Report on Yonkers Budget

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NYS Comptroller's Office just released the results of an audit of the current fiscal budget for Yonkers. Below are the sections pertaining to Police and Fire.

Entire report can be found here:

http://yonkerstribune.typepad.com/files/nys-comproller-thomas-dinapolis-yonkers-mid-year-budget-review.pdf

Police Overtime

As part of our budget review process, the City submitted documentation to show why the

$9.7 million budget was sufficient. To reduce overtime costs, the City planned, among

other actions, to fill 40 vacant positions with new officers in July 2009 and have them

available for police duty six months later. However, the City has filled only 21 of those

positions. Since the City has already expended its entire 2009-10 budget for police

overtime, and has not completed all the actions it stated it would take to reduce overtime,

we believe that police overtime could be as much as $6.8 million more than budgeted.

Our estimate assumes that overtime will continue at the same pace it was incurred during

the first six months of the fiscal year. We also adjusted this estimate for both the savings

derived from the availability of the 21 new officers and reimbursements for police

overtime incurred, but not yet paid for.

Fire Overtime

As part of our 2009-10 budget review, the City also submitted

documentation showing why the $5.3 million it proposed was sufficient to fund fire

overtime in 2009-10. The City planned, among other actions, to fill 21 vacant positions

with new firefighters and have them available six months later. The City has actually

filled 34 positions. While the additional 13 positions may help the City avoid some fire

overtime costs, the associated salary costs were not budgeted, so salaries have increased

by approximately $583,000. Since the City has already expended all but $900,000 of the

2009-10 fire overtime budget, we believe that overtime expenditures will likely be about

$3.5 million more than budgeted.

The City’s own estimates indicate that appropriations for the police and fire departments are insufficient.

As such, the City must take actions to prevent expenditures from exceeding appropriations.

Conclusion

Given the City’s nearly exhausted financial resources and the continuing uncertainty of

the economy, the City has very few options to use in dealing with these issues. The City

should act quickly to close the budget gap. We urge City officials to implement stringent

fiscal oversight and strict controls over the next six months to prevent further

deterioration of the City’s financial condition.

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Related article from Lohud:

"A new state report describes Yonkers as having nearly exhausted its financial resources and having few options to deal with coming budget crises."

http://www.lohud.com/article/20100325/NEWS02/3250370/1246/NEWS0224/State--Yonkers-has-nearly-exhausted-its-financial-resources