Syracuse Bureau of Accounts Budget Hearing - April 13, 2026
Syracuse Bureau of Accounts Budget Hearing - April 13, 2026
This meeting was a budget hearing for the City of Syracuse's Bureau of Accounts (BOA), led by newly appointed Finance Commissioner Diane Nestry. Discussions focused on the department's budget, operations, and long-term fiscal sustainability.
Discussion Items
- Commissioner Introduction: Diane Nestry, recently stepping into the role of Commissioner of Finance, provided an overview of BOA's responsibilities, including accounting for all city transactions, overseeing bank accounts, and reconciliations. She noted a slight reduction in the budget due to vacancies and a decrease in the deputy commissioner position (created last year but never filled). Two vacancies exist (Accountant 3 and Accountant 1), with only one Accountant 3 funded this year. The commissioner's and deputy commissioner's salaries were also reduced.
- Out-of-Title Pay: Nestry explained that out-of-title pay covers the interim commissioner (herself) and other staff in transition, compensating for pay variances.
- Budget and Structural Challenges: Council members acknowledged the department's efforts to limit year-over-year increases but noted that expenses are rising faster than revenues. Nestry discussed strategic use of debt service, fund balance, and savings to bridge cash flow gaps until state aid and other revenues arrive. She emphasized improving reporting and spending oversight.
- Audit Partnership: Nestry described the Bonadio Group as a great audit firm, noting the lengthy but informative process. The contract is bid every three years. An RFP for accounting consulting services is underway, and a support staff from FUST assists with grants management. The "center of excellence" project aims to improve grant reimbursement efficiency.
- Operational Efficiencies: Nestry expressed a desire to consolidate the city's 30+ bank accounts to reduce administrative work, and to better utilize accounting software to automate manual journal entries. She advocated for increased training and professional development funding, noting that only four LinkedIn Learning licenses were used last year.
- Interest Income: Interest income is projected to decrease by $2.5 million (from $9.5M to $7M) due to a conservative estimate and slightly lower invested cash reserves.
- Cross-Departmental Collaboration: Nestry noted partnerships with Budget, FinOps, and Neighborhood & Business Development (NBD) to integrate NBD into PeopleSoft accounting software, aiming to centralize processes. She expressed interest in learning best practices from other cities (e.g., Rochester, Buffalo).
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes or decisions were taken; the hearing was informational. The council acknowledged the department's prudent budgeting. Nestry committed to continuing work on consolidating bank accounts, improving software integration, and enhancing training opportunities. Further discussion on fee collection was deferred to the CPC budget hearing.
Meeting Transcript
We're good, Brad. All right, good morning, everybody. Welcome back. Um today we've got four hearings that are our conversations around the financial arm of the corporation. Um we're starting off this morning with the Bureau of Accounts. Um I am joined by Counselor Zarinric, Jones Rouser, Moore Nave, President Paniagua, um, Councillor Monto, and then Nestry and Kristen Bennett from our finance department. Um we're gonna start off on page eighty nine. Uh but before we kind of jump into the numbers, do you want to just give us an overview of what you're doing while we're here? Uh certainly. Um arguably to me one of the most critical and uh very important as we move forward with the next couple weeks of discussions around the budget and our fiscal sustainability. Yeah, hi, good morning. Um thank you for that nice introduction. Yes, I'm Diane Nestry, and I've stepped up as the commissioner of finance uh just this past month. So new in the role, but I've been around the city of Syracuse since twenty sixteen. Uh very excited about this opportunity, and I'm already amazed at all of the things that the team is capable of and does being in this seat, I'm seeing a lot of how we work as a team, and I just wanted to give uh an appreciation of all the efforts that the team is making. Um yeah, we we're gonna go over Bureau of Accounts. This is where all the transactions for the city of Syracuse is accounted for in our uh finance system. We also oversee all of the bank accounts and transactions. Um as well as doing any reconciliations and helping set up projects. Um we also did a slight reduction in one of our vacant positions for the deputy commissioner. This was a new role last year that we presented to you uh to the counselors and to the mayor's office to be funded. We have not yet filled it. Um change by anything. Yep, we're maintaining. We are maintaining um we were just able to reduce some of the salary lines. Okay. And I yeah. Is that because there's new people? Like um no, uh, we've had two vacancies in BOA as out an accountant three and an accountant one. Uh we funded the accountant one. We're only funding for one accountant three instead of two this year. We've also reduced, like I had mentioned that deputy commissioner salary as well as the commissioner's salary. Okay. And if you definitely, if you want a more detailed comparison, I can definitely send something up after this meeting. I thought it would just later was wrong. Oh because I mean you you win now. Well, if you want to give us more funding, we will take it and we will run it. Thank you. Has the deputy position been um open? This was created last year in the budget, however, I I uh it for about a year. It's been open for about a year. The um out of title pay, what would that be used for? What would someone be doing out of title? Um, I know some of that covers for the interim commissioner or um because I'm stepping outside of my role. I'm the assistant uh director of BOA. So um some of that is covering the change in uh responsibilities. Yeah. Oh I think we have a few one other staff that is in transition going from one title to another. So that is also to make up for that uh pay variance. So I think we've got a half an hour, and what are we looking at?
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