ELMIRA, N.Y. (WENY) – The New York State Comptroller’s Office released the fiscal stress scores for communities across the state, including Chemung County.

The Fiscal Stress Monitoring System is an assessment of local government finances, based on information from annual reports filed by each municipality.  According to the County Treasurer, Jennifer Furman, the county again received a “No Designation” score, the “best possible fiscal stress score”.  Additionally, the county’s fiscal stress score improved over the last three years, going from 25.8 in 2018 to 16.3 in 2019 and 9.6 in 2020.

The county’s environmental score was also “No Designation”. That score is based on “indicators in the economic environment that county management does not control directly, such as changes in county population and unemployment data”.

The county also saw an improvement in the cash score in 2020, which includes the indicators for cash ration and cash as a percentage of monthly gross expenditures. Treasurer Furman said she attributes this improvement to “the collection of several large state and federal receivables and also to focused work by the county management/finance team in this area, including concentrated efforts to control spending and collect on revenues and receivables”.

“The results here from the Comptroller’s Office for 2020 are very favorable, and there really can be no other conclusion drawn than Chemung County’s finances overall have improved since 2018,” said Furman. “Results such as these indicate the continued hard work, focus and resilience of our entire team, and I truly appreciate the county’s skilled and professional workforce in these efforts.”