New York.

State Comptroller H. Carl McCall, Scriticized by opponents for watering down fiscal reports on New York City, now says he will issue audits on local governments with "a new to format is more useful to local officials and more understandable to the general public."

In a press release, McCall said that the audits on local governments will contain "added features," including an executive summary and a summary of significant recommendations.

"By including a summary, we make our recommendations to the municipal officials more focused, but in a language that the public can understand, making them easier to implement," McCall said.

Since taking over the comptroller's post in April, McCall has said that he wants to change the way the office monitors local governments. He has said, for example, that he wants to offer more suggestions, and less criticism, of New York City budgets.

But recently some municipal market analysts, fiscal monitors, and political opponents have criticized McCall for adopting this monitoring approach after he fired several aides who worked on audits of New York City.

One of the former aides told the New York Post on Aug. 17 that McCall has "neutralized" the office's criticisms of New York City, and that McCall is not "interested in doing the job of an independent tough fiscal monitor."

But Cynthia Munk, a spokeswoman for the comptroller's office, said the local audit changes are nothing more than "a reformatting" responding to criticisms by local officials, taxpayers, and reporters, who found the old audits difficult to read.

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