County finance report: $149M cash position, casino revenue rising and cannabis receipts reviewed

Tompkins County Director of Finance Daryl presented the county's first-quarter investment and cash report to the BCP Committee on June 8, highlighting balances, recent revenue streams and near-term operational items.

Daryl said total cash across county accounts as of March 31, 2026, was approximately $149 million, with roughly $65 million held at Tompkins Community Bank. He explained that large checking balances primarily reflect timing (payroll and accounts-payable timing and property-tax collections), and he described ongoing work to implement cash-management software and to better smooth certificate-of-deposit maturities.

On revenue lines, Daryl reported first-quarter casino revenue of $654,951 (up from $616,000 in the prior-year quarter) and presented the county's adult-use cannabis tax receipts for the quarter: total receipts reported about $114,000 across municipalities with Tompkins County's share approximately $28,500; the City of Ithaca received roughly $73,000, and smaller payments went to Dryden, Ulysses, Danby and the Village of Trumansburg. Daryl said he would follow up with more detail on the drop in Dryden's share and how the state reports timing across quarters.

Committee members pressed staff on a few items: whether online gambling revenue is included in the casino figures (Daryl said he would investigate), the county's bond anticipation-note usage (Daryl said the county partially borrowed and used BANs for cash-flow needs this year), and the mechanics and timing for cannabis and sales-tax distributions. Several members suggested earmarking portions of gaming or cannabis revenue for addiction-treatment, enforcement or public-safety resources; Daryl said he would raise those options with county administration.

Daryl also reported on the sales-tax position through March 31: county collections year-to-date were $20,926,000 (a 3.7% increase year-to-date), county portion $11,771,000, and the county is about 22.4% toward an unallocated budgeted sales-tax target of $45.9 million for the year.

Committee members asked for follow-up materials, including (a) clarification about the 1% city-county sales-tax calculations tied to the sales-tax resolution the committee passed, (b) the detailed breakdown behind the cannabis figures for Dryden and (c) how casino and online wagering revenues are categorized in state reporting.