New county administrator joins meeting as staff flag budget‑software reporting challenges

Corso Kumfri, Tompkins County’s newly appointed county administrator, attended his first Budget, Capital and Personnel Committee meeting on Jan. 9 as staff outlined efforts to improve budget reporting and tracking.

Why it matters: Committee members and staff discussed how the county’s current budget software and the way the county records over‑target requests (OTRs) complicate year‑end reporting and oversight. Several legislators raised visibility concerns about multiyear OTRs becoming ongoing targets without adequate legislative review.

What staff reported: Finance staff and the county administrator said the county captured many OTRs as separate proposals rather than line‑item adjustments, which increases administrative time to extract and reconcile the information. The director of finance said the team is considering a process that would record additional requests as incremental line items in the operating budgets rather than as whole new proposals. Staff said vendors often expect single line‑item adjustments rather than entirely separate budgets for incremental requests.

Legislative concerns and next steps: Legislators asked that any change preserve visibility so the legislature can evaluate if a multiyear OTR should convert to a target line in the budget. Committee members suggested pulling departments into discussions about process changes and noted the goal of moving toward more timely financial reporting.

The committee also discussed staff morale and the desirability of a retreat for legislators and administrators to align priorities; staff said planning for that is underway.