Village of Red Hook

Tests each operating account's adopted budget against an empirical burn-rate projection — a recency-weighted regression on the full FY 25-26 QuickBooks general ledger, rolled forward as an "if-nothing-changes" forecast. Surfaces which lines are tracking over their FY 26-27 appropriation, with capital-class one-offs reclassified to a Repair Reserve so they don't distort the run-rate.

Village runs the police department; Town and Tivoli buy service via shared-services agreements. Existing analysis weighs the contract terms against actual costs.

Reads operating-cost coverage, day-by-day cash solvency, and reserve adequacy together. Operating rate revenue covers only part of operating costs (the gap filled by a General Fund transfer), and under the conservative $206K budget-note repayment path the fund's cash dips close to zero. Assumes the adopted budget figures are accurate — which a companion issue questions.

Every adopted General Fund budget since FY 23-24 lists four constituency medical premiums (Police, Highway, Village staff, Retirees) and then nets ~$66K off the parent line with an unlabeled negative entry. The writedown isn't a recognized OSC accounting move, has no matching revenue line, hasn't scaled with 27% premium growth, and in the one audited year medical insurance overran the net budget by $31K. Whether the contra represents a real expected credit or a budgeting plug, OSC standards say it doesn't belong on the expense side.

The Board is authorizing up to $206K of new borrowing because the sewer fund couldn't make its own bond payment from cash. The deeper reason isn't a deficit — it's that the fund has no documented reserve target. Sizes three defensible policy ranges (operating cushion, repair contingency, capital reserve contribution) against GFOA and small-utility best practice, and frames what the budget-note repayment plan should commit the Board to.

The DMR forms the village submits to NYSDEC are missing data, quantized to round numbers, and inconsistent with regional rainfall. Sludge invoices don't say what triggered the pump or which plant was emptied. Trustees and DEC are paying for and regulating against unreliable records.

FY 25-26 sludge budget was $5,500; latest projected actual is $60,837 — driven by frequent emergency pump-outs the operator describes as rainwater removal. The data does not support that explanation.

The sewer fund relies on a $205K General Fund advance to balance — is that a one-time gap or a structural deficit? Hold-rates scenarios + cash-flow projections.