NYS Comptroller: over 24 percent of families in Utica in poverty vs. 10 percent statewide

The city of Utica is facing serious challenges. On Tuesday, the state's Comptroller's Office said Utica has recurring budget gaps and many other problems.

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says Utica is one of the cities that had to raise taxes and cut jobs in order to balance its 2012 budget.

To help cities in financial straits, the comptroller is proposing to monitor the financial stress.

Comptroller DiNapoli is doing financial profiles on cities across the state, one of the first being the city of Utica.

"I know sometimes when we indicate we are going to have these profiles of the monitoring system. Some say hey we know we have problems already. But some don't know the dimension of the problems," explained DiNapoli.

Some of those problems are socio-economic factors that contribute to the city's financial struggles.

Issues facing Utica: a declining population, high rates of poverty and unemployment, slow economic growth and an overreliance on state and federal aid.

Other findings in the report show over 24 percent of families in Utica live in poverty compared with 10 percent statewide.

Utica has almost $60 million in debt and it has exhausted more than half of its constitutional debt limit.

"It's certainly nothing that we haven't heard from before. We have addressed as much as we can from as the beginning of January of last year as we came in with an $8 mil dollar gap in our budget," said Utica Mayor Robert Palmieri.

But, aside from the negative report, Mayor Palmieri says the city of Utica offers an opportunity for growth.

The mayor says he understands the challenges and is working to reverse the city's downward fiscal trends.

With the growing number of cities facing struggles, Comptroller DiNapoli will be implementing an early warning monitoring system to prevent a full financial crisis.

As for the 2013 budget for Utica, Mayor Palmieri says that will be out in mid-February.