Suffolk County earns award for bank collateral monitoring system

After the 2023 bank failures shook confidence in public deposits nationwide, Suffolk County moved to tighten its own guardrails around taxpayer money. Comptroller John M. Kennedy, Jr. and the fintech firm three+one built a bank collateral monitoring system that gives the county a single view of deposits across departments and checks whether those funds are backed at the level required by New York State and Suffolk County.

The stakes were not abstract. Suffolk’s Comptroller’s Office says it watches daily bank balances tied to county operations that include federal and state aid, sales tax deposits, trust and agency monies and debt-service payments. The office says it is responsible for protecting the assets of nearly 1.5 million residents, which means making sure cash sitting in authorized depositories is fully collateralized and not left exposed if a bank runs into trouble.

The new process changed how that oversight works. According to three+one, the system captures bank deposits across all county departments at the touch of a button, then checks both the level and the quality of the collateral behind those balances. What began launching in early 2024 was fully implemented by the last quarter of 2025, and the Comptroller’s Office now produces collateral reports bimonthly. In plain terms, the county shifted from piecing together its exposure department by department to seeing the whole picture in one place.

That matters because collateral is the backstop that protects public cash if a bank fails or falls short of what it should be holding on behalf of the county. Suffolk officials say the system gives them a cleaner and more complete picture of where county money is parked and whether it is properly protected, which is a real control improvement, not just a nicer audit trail. At the same time, the program does make audits easier to follow because the reporting is now standardized and repeated on a regular schedule.

The National Association of Counties recognized Suffolk’s Bank Account Collateralization Program with a 2025 Achievement Award in Financial Management and a Best in Category honor. County officials said the initiative, launched by Kennedy in late 2023 with support from County Executive Edward P. Romaine, is part of a broader push for fiscal transparency, security and operational efficiency. Suffolk is also upgrading its financial management technology through a cloud migration of the CGI Advantage system, another sign that the county is trying to modernize how it tracks public money before a crisis forces the issue.