Reports

This report highlights the Office of the New York State Comptroller’s fiscal stress results for municipalities (counties, cities, towns and villages) for local fiscal years ending in 2025. While the number of fiscal stress designations decreased slightly, many municipalities are dealing with mounting fiscal pressures from high inflation and rising operating costs, among other things. Included in this report is an analysis of the fiscal stress indicators and trends for entities that failed to file annual financial data in time to receive a score. | Fiscal Stress Monitoring System Designations, FYEs 2015 to 2025 [xlsx]

New York State requires localities to provide funds toward the non-federal share of Medicaid funding and provides these localities with support for administration. As of May 2026, more than 3.6 million city residents were enrolled in Medicaid, with 1.4 million enrollments administered by the City.

Foundation Aid is the state’s primary public school funding formula. New York City will receive nearly $11 billion in FY 2027, nearly double what it first received in FY 2008.

School Building Aid is the second-largest state aid allocation to New York City. These funds have nearly tripled in the past 20 years, growing from $674 million in FY 2008 to $1.8 billion in FY 2027. It is expected to cover 44.6% of the Department of Education’s debt service costs.

State Child Welfare Services funding, also known as State Preventive Services, supports interventions that prevent extended foster care placements for at-risk children and provides wraparound services for families before, during, and after a child enters foster care.

About 17% of the city’s total revenue for Fiscal Year 2027, totaling over $21 billion, comes from state aid, including substantial categorical grant funding for essential programs for children, families, and vulnerable residents. Major education and social service programs in New York City could be in jeopardy if federal funding cuts to the state occur.

In 2017, New York State passed the Raise the Age legislation, increasing the age of criminal responsibility from 16 years of age to 18. The state included $300 million in baseline funding for youth justice services specifically for the city in its State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2027 Enacted Budget.

High Cost Aid, also known as Public Excess Cost, is for public school districts to educate students with disabilities. In FY 2027, the state allocated $263 million in High-Cost Aid to New York City, making this the City’s ninth-largest stream of state aid.

The state provides additional aid for every charter school student, called “Supplemental Basic Tuition.” In the 2024-25 school year, there were 281 charter schools operating in New York City, serving 148,083 students in grades Pre-K through 12.

Child Care Block Grants (CCBG) distribute federal Child Care Development funds; however, the state has taken on an expanded role in ensuring local child service programs remain funded. Total CCBG funding allocated to the city has grown dramatically.

The Safety Net Assistance program is one of New York State’s two public assistance programs, which provide cash and non-cash assistance to state residents, including direct payments made to landlords and vouchers sent to utility companies.

New York State reimburses the city for a significant amount of the costs of transporting students to and from school. The city’s Transportation Aid allocation has grown significantly in recent years, and will reach $880 million for FY 2027.

The $1.1 billion the state is expected to provide to support Pre-K in New York city is the third-largest funding stream the city receives annually from the state, serving approximately 67,000 children every year.

Workplace injuries and illnesses among private sector businesses in New York declined nearly 18% between 2014 and 2024, falling to 122,400 incidents. Fewer than two workers per 100 were injured or fell ill on the job in 2024; however, rates in several industry subsectors were significantly higher.

Mobile sports betting has quickly become New York state’s second largest source of gaming revenue, trailing only the lottery. In State Fiscal Year 2026, mobile sports betting generated $1.3 billion in state revenues from taxes on gross gaming revenues. The report also notes that the increased wagering activity led to a 8.5% increase in calls to the state’s problem gambling hotline in 2025 since 2020.

Between 2018 to 2025, the 9/11 Memorial welcomed 57 million visitors and the museum hosted more than 16 million visitors. In 2025 alone, the Memorial welcomed 11.3 million visitors and the Museum saw 2.4 million visitors. Visitation to the Museum has been steady in recent years, although still lagging pre-pandemic levels of more than 3.1 million in 2019. Memorial attendance, however, now exceeds pre-pandemic levels.

Lower Manhattan has undergone a profound transformation in the 25 years since the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The area boasts a diversified business community, an expanding tourism sector, major public transportation investments, and the emergence of a 24-hour neighborhood that has seen the number of housing units and residents more than double since 2000.

As required by Section 196 of the Navigation Law, the Comptroller prepares an annual report to the State Legislature and the Governor. The report includes: a description of the costs and damages paid by and recovered for the Fund; the monies spent pursuant to Section 186 (including amounts spent for oil spill prevention, training activities and equipment purchased), and the economic and environmental impacts on the State.

The New York State Legislature amended the State Finance Law in 2015 by adding a new Section 8-c providing for the establishment of a statewide electronic system to help detect and prevent fraud, waste and abuse in government spending and to help avoid improper payment of public funds.

State taxpayers supported worthy causes by contributing to programs through personal income tax checkoffs, but too much money is sitting idle instead of helping nonprofit organizations or research and other efforts. This analysis found that while some of New York’s tax checkoff funds reported increased spending in State Fiscal Year 2026, over half had no spending at all.