As Fredonia village officials struggle to whittle down a 65.3% tax levy increase, it’s interesting to note the village was also found not to be in fiscal stress in a state Comptroller’s Office review of village budgets released last week.

We’ve said before that we think the Fiscal Stress Monitoring System is flawed, particularly when looking at Jamestown’s finances in the past. We still think the system is flawed, but perhaps the biggest flaw is that local governments have to submit paperwork to the state in order to be included in the rankings.

Fredonia didn’t do that in time this year, so its finances weren’t included in this year’s analysis of statewide village finances. It joins a list of roughly 20%........

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