Audit contains mixed results for city
By Rick Pfeiffer
Sunday, August 01, 2026

You can’t hear it ticking when you walk through the doors of City Hall.

Inside, though, buried in the reams of reports on the city’s fiscal condition, a fiscal time bomb is waiting to explode.

The fall-out may be more than the Falls, both the folks who live here and the people running the show in City Hall, will be able to deal with.

The difficulties start with an independent audit of the city’s 2003 fiscal year.

At first glance, much in the audit is good. For the first time ever, the Falls received what is known in the accounting profession as an ‘”unqualified opinion” from the auditors who looked at the financial statements.

That means the auditors found no need to explain any of the city’s financial practices.

“We looked at all the aspects of the financials,” said Wayne Drescher, of Drescher & Malecki, the firm that performed the audit. “There were no qualifications. There are no trap-doors, no hidden surprises, in these.”

City Administrator Daniel Bristol said that’s extremely important, as the city prepares to go into the bond market, to borrow money to stretch recently received casino revenues.

“It’s important because everyone who loans you money wants to look at them,” Bristol said.

Another apparently pleasant bottom line in the audit is a slightly more than $4 million surplus in the city’s 2003 budget. However, what looks like a positive, is actually a problem.

The surplus is the tip of a dangerous financial iceberg.

“That change (surplus) comes from $3.2 million in casino money, the sale of the Wintergarden ($950,000) and the sale of the bus terminal ($200,000),” Drescher said. “Without these extraordinary, one time, transactions, the city would have had a slight loss.”

City Controller Maria Brown said the 2003 budget also benefited from some other “usual circumstances.”

“We sold a convention center storage lot for $180,000, parking ticket revenue was up about $400,000 and sales tax revenue was much higher than we had estimated because of a one time amnesty program,” Brown said. “Had we not had these isolated revenues, we would have ended with a $187,000 loss. There was no surplus.”

The virtual deficit the city experienced was driven by two major factors. The city lost a staggering $2.8 million operating the municipal parking ramps and the police department busted its overtime budget.

City departments exceeding their budget lines is a dangerous practice, that Brown said needs to come to an end.

“Department heads need to monitor overtime and other lines,” Brown said. “You can not overspend your budget without first getting Council approval.”

That sentiment was echoed by Councilman Lewis “Babe” Rotella.

“We’ve got to get back to dollar for dollar,” Rotella said. “That’s how you run a business, that’s how you run your household. You don’t spend a dollar if you don’t have a dollar.”

The audit also shows the city has a cash reserve of $9.4 million, but that to is just the tip of a dangerous iceberg.

“Not all of that money is free surplus,” Drescher said. “Some of it is (already dedicated and can not be spent).”

Out of $9.4 million, $1.6 million is in the form of “long term receivables”, that is money that the city is owed, but hasn’t yet been collected. The $3.2 million casino payment is also included in the cash reserves, as is $1.2 million, dedicated to pay workers’ compensation claims.

That leaves the city with just $1.7 million in “free” cash reserves and 2004 budget shortfalls are already burning through that money.

“There was no contingency for increased health care costs, we underfunded the pension bill and the garbage contract (in the 2004 city budget),” Brown said. “I’ve already had to draw money out of the reserves to pay some of those bills.”

For Mayor Vince Anello, the good news in the audit is overwhelmed by the landmines that lie ahead.

“If last year’s budget was underfunded, you know this year’s budget is underfunded,” Anello said. “We’ve subsidized tax revenues with other revenues. We are not funding our services.”
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