NYC Comptroller’s Office Releases Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report

 

The Office of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander released the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2023. The ACFR provides an in-depth accounting of the City of New York’s finances to assess fiscal health. It contains audited financial statements for the year running from July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023.

“New York City’s economy continues to surpass expectations of recovery from the economic challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. “While we are on solid footing and seeing steady growth, many economic challenges remain. The Annual Comprehensive Financial Report remains a vital resource as we measure the City’s fiscal performance. I am grateful for the work of my Office’s Bureau of Accountancy who compile this crucial transparency tool each year.”

The ACFR also provides explanatory notes to the financial statements, supplemental financial and statistical information about New York City for each of the City’s accounting funds and basic financial statements of the City’s five retirement systems and closely related entities such as NYC Health + Hospitals and the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

This year marks the 43rd year that the City of New York is awarded the prestigious Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting by the Government Finance Officers Association.

Highlights from the Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report include:

City of New York Finances

• General Fund revenues totaled $108.24 billion while expenditures totaled $108.18 billion, resulting in a surplus of $60.5 million, including restricted fund activities.
• General Fund revenues were $1.16 billion higher than in FY 2022, a 1.1% increase. Tax, miscellaneous and other revenues, and State categorical grants increased by $6.37 billion, while federal categorical grants dropped by $5.07 billion. Excluding the transfers to eliminate future fiscal year projected gaps, expenditures increased by $2.90 billion or 2.7%.

• Excluding restricted fund activities, the General Fund had a surplus of $5.1 million, which was deposited into the Revenue Stabilization Fund (RSF). The total of long-term reserves (RSF and Retiree Health Benefit Trust) was $6.54 billion, or 8.9% of the General Fund’s tax revenues. This is well below the 16.0% needed to weather the full length of a recession.
• Actual FY 2023 revenues were $7.85 billion more than projected in the FY 2023 Adopted Budget, driven by a $5.69 billion variance in tax revenues. Over the year, the City availed itself of $12.53 billion in additional resources that were primarily used to close the FY 2024 budget gap ($5.48 billion), fund the unanticipated costs associated with providing services and shelter to people seeking asylum ($1.47 billion), fund greater than budgeted contractual services costs outside of asylum seeker costs ($2.06 billion), and pay for greater than expected overtime costs, again excluding overtime costs associated with the City’s asylum seeker response ($1.11 billion).

New York City Retirement Systems

The Comptroller’s Bureau of Asset Management is the investment advisor to the City’s five retirement systems: New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS), Teachers’ Retirement System of the City of New York (TRS), New York City Police Pension Fund (Police), New York City Fire Pension Fund (Fire), and the New York City Board of Education Retirement System (BERS). 

• As of June 30, 2023, the combined investments assets of the City’s five Systems totaled $253.3 billion, a $12.7 billion increase from the value as of the end of FY 2022. During the fiscal year, the fair value of the assets ranged from a high of $253.3 billion (June 2023) to a low of $228.2 billion (September 2022).
• The time-weighted return (net of manager fees) of the aggregate portfolio was 7.98% in FY 2023 and -8.65% in FY 2022. The FY 2023 returns of each of the five systems exceeded their policy benchmarks.

Municipal Finance

The Comptroller’s Bureau of Public Finance works with the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget to issue bonds to finance the City’s extensive capital program and to refund outstanding bonds for savings. 

• Federal Reserve policy to lower inflation contributed to a modest increase in mid- and long-term rates and a steep increase in short-term interest rates throughout FY 2023, resulting in an inverted Municipal Market Data AAA benchmark (MMD) yield curve that began in December of 2022 and persisted through the end of the fiscal year.

• Despite the volatility in interest rates, the City’s borrowing and refinancing schedule remained consistent, with the General Obligation (GO) and New York City Transitional Finance Authority (TFA) credits coming to market 11 times throughout the fiscal year, with 6 new money and 5 refunding transactions. The refunding transactions provided $500 million in budgetary savings.

Local Economic Conditions in Fiscal Year 2023  

• By the end of FY 2023, New York City’s job market recovered 925,900 of the 956,500 jobs lost between February and April 2020. Jobs in traditionally office-using industries and in Education and Health Care Services had surpassed their pre-pandemic levels. Relative to February 2020, the largest private-sector job gaps were in Trade, Transportation, and Utilities (-62,500), and Leisure and Hospitality (-34,200).
• The unemployment rate was 5.4% in June 2023 (seasonally adjusted). From June 2022 to June 2023 the unemployment rate increased by 0.4 percentage points, due to an increase in the labor force.

• New York City taxable sales grew by 11.3% in FY 2023, driven by both economic growth and inflation. Taxable sales in FY 2023 were 24.4% higher than in FY 2019.
• The housing market remained strong, with the median asking rent in June 2023 reaching $3,750, 29.3% higher than the level in 2019.
• The Manhattan office market vacancy rate was 22.4% in the last quarter of FY 2023, slightly higher than in the same period the previous year but more than double the 10.5% in FY 2019. Both office attendance in the New York City metropolitan area (measured Tuesday through Thursday) and visitation rates at New York City office buildings continued to increase but remain far from pre-pandemic levels.
• The Consumer Price Index in the New York City metropolitan area grew by 5.3% in FY 2023, measured on an annual average basis.

The full Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) is now available for download. Financial and statistical tables in the annual report are available for download on the Comptroller’s website at www.comptroller.nyc.gov.