Reports

This report examines the damage the pandemic has inflicted on the restaurant, retail, and recreation sectors, and considers the distribution of federal funds for businesses in the City, particularly for businesses in low- and moderate-income communities and in historically underutilized business zones. While approaches to targeting federal funding have improved, the City and the State have already recognized that they need to do more to assist the City’s disadvantaged businesses. The state of these sectors suggests support may be necessary for some time for them to fully recover.

This report is a summary of the costs related to responding to the pandemic that the Ulster County Comptroller’s Office was able to aggregate from existing reported financial and personnel data for 2020. The County continues to incur substantial costs in the current year 2021, many of which are offset by pandemic related revenue streams, such as the cost of operating vaccination clinics. We have reviewed the 2020 expenditures to assist in both improving the accounting for these costs and potentially identifying and obtaining revenues to offset these costs.

This report details the growth in Medicaid enrollment before and during the pandemic, as well as evaluating those enrollment changes in relation to the economy’s performance. The report also evaluates risks that could result from more enrollees remaining on Medicaid than projected, and offers recommendations for policy makers as we strive to effectively manage this essential program.

The Department of Taxation and Finance is responsible for administering more than 40 State and localities, including the sales and use tax. Provisions of State Tax impose a tax on sales of taxable personal property and certain services, with some exemptions and require vendors that makes these sales to register for a Certificate of Authority, collect the tax from customers, and remit the tax to the State. The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted sales tax collections due to restrictions on businesses throughout 2020 and 2021. Collections have since begun to rebound, and, as of May 2021...