The Manhattan Times

The race for Comptroller

by Daniel P. Bader

Out of all the election races on tap for the Sept. 15 Democratic Primary, perhaps no showdown is less understood than the race to be New York City’s next comptroller. The position, however, is a top job in the city – as one of the few city-wide offices it’s seen as a step towards running for mayor – and carries significant weight in the day-to-day running of the five boroughs.

As a watchdog, the comptroller’s office has the power to audit city agencies to ensure tax dollars are properly spent and, besides actually paying the bills, it oversees how the city’s $80 billion employee pension fund is invested.

Since 2002 Democrat William Thompson has been the city’s top bookkeeper, winning a second term in 2005. He has stepped down to run against incumbent Michael Bloomberg for mayor.

The candidates for comptroller are Queens City Council Members Melinda Katz, John Liu and David Weprin and Brooklyn Council Member David Yassky.

Each candidate has vowed to use the office’s audit power to root out waste in city government, particularly in the Department of Education which is the single largest expenditure of city tax dollars. The DOE was off limits to the comptroller until Albany recently voted to extend mayoral control of the schools and in the process gave the office more oversight. All the comptroller hopefuls also want to take a look at city contracts for wasted money.

Melinda Katz

Melinda Katz grew up in Queens and attended city schools. She attended the University of Massachusetts and earned her law degree at St. John’s University. At age 28 she was elected to the State Assembly in 1994 and again in 1996. She was elected to the City Council in 2001 and chairs the Land Use Committee.

Katz, the mother of one-year-old Carter, is the only woman in the race. She styles herself as a fighter who negotiates compromises while others hold press conferences.

Katz plans to make sure the federal stimulus dollars are used to create jobs and are leveraged to impact economic development projects in the city. Katz wants to invest part of the pension fund in companies with distressed debt to help preserve jobs that might otherwise be cut.

Katz believes the comptroller’s office can help make healthcare more accessible by ensuring public hospitals stay public, and using audit powers to look at lawsuits against those hospitals as insurance that they run more efficiently.

John Liu

John Liu immigrated to the United States from Taiwan when he was five. Liu, a mathematical physicist educated at city schools then at SUNY Binghamton, is the first Asian-American elected to the City Council. Prior to his Council seat, Liu worked as a manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers, a financial firm.

Liu takes a conservative stance on how the pension funds should be invested, believing that after the recent economic crisis: “all the pension plans have been diminished. …The confidence needs to be restored.”

As comptroller he would do a top-down audit of every city agency, including the 700 employees in the comptroller’s office. Liu wants to make sure the city takes full advantage of federal stimulus dollars and invest them in the city’s infrastructure. Pledging transparency, streamlining and accountability, Liu wants to push the city away from its dependence on Wall Street as an economic driver.

David Weprin

David Weprin has a long career in the financial sector. In 1983 he was the deputy superintendent for banks under Governor Mario Cuomo and sat on the New York State Banking Board. In the 1990s New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani asked Weprin to join the Tax Reform Task Force, and in the private sector he worked for a bevy of financial firms.

Weprin would invest the pension fund in companies doing business in the city. He would also audit his office in the first year. One of his most original ideas is opening “ombudsman” offices in each of the boroughs, with Manhattan’s in Washington Heights. These offices would go beyond the responsibilities of the comptroller’s office, helping residents and businesses learn financial literacy and being an outlet for concerns about government agencies that the comptroller could investigate.

David Yassky

David Yassky, a lawyer for then-Representative Charles Schumer, worked in Washington, D.C. on anti-crime bills such as the Brady Law, which bans assault weapons, and the Violence Against Women Act. He returned to New York to work in the private sector as a lawyer dealing with regulatory issues. He was elected to the City Council in 2001 and chairs the Small Business Subcommittee.

If elected comptroller Yassky has vowed to cut at least 10 percent of waste in every city budget and ensure that contractors bring projects in on budget rather than bidding low and than slowly increasing the price tag. Yassky praised Thompson’s efforts to make sure that Section 8 housing was fairly distributed and has promised to use the pension fund to invest in affordable housing. He also pointed to his efforts in the Council to close tax loopholes for developers while providing incentives for those who set aside a large number of units for affordable housing.

On his Web site, Yassky had detailed “Policy Papers” on a dozen major issues he plans to address, like reforming the comptroller’s office, budget reform, and awarding contracts.

Yassky is the only candidate so far who has campaigned extensively in Northern Manhattan, greeting voters on Wed., Aug., 12 at the 207^th Street A-train stop with former 10^th District Council Member Guillermo Linares.