Ulster comptroller to seek full 4-year term
Just 12 months after taking office, Ulster County Comptroller March Gallagher has launched a bid to win a full four-year term as the county’s fiscal watchdog.
Gallagher announced her re-election bid in a press release that stated she had added over $14,000 to her campaign coffers during the latest state filing period.
“I love my job and the opportunities I have every day to ensure fiscal responsibility and transparency for the people of Ulster County, making Ulster the best place to live, work and care for a family,” Gallagher said in the release. “Despite being short-staffed and working remotely during a global pandemic, we were able to implement important steps to ensure accountability and oversight in county government.”
Gallagher was elected in November 2019 to complete the term of Elliott Auerbach, who resigned as county comptroller midway through his term to take a job in the office of state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
Auerbach’s four-year term would have ended Dec. 31, 2021, so Gallagher has to run in November if she wants to keep the job.
There so far are no other declared candidates for the job. In 2019, Gallagher beat fellow Democrat Lisa Cutten, who ran on the Republican, Conservative and Independence lines.
Gallagher said in her campaign announcement that she is “running for another term to continue the work we have done championing economic and social justice, and to highlight and find solutions for quality-of-life issues such as racial inequities, the local cost of hosting the New York City watershed, and the impacts of limited mental health service access.”
A Rosendale resident, Gallagher is a lawyer a former president and chief executive officer of Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley, a position she left to run for comptroller. She previously was chief strategy officer for Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress, deputy planning director and director of business services for Ulster County, and chairwoman of the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency.
She also worked for Maurice Hinchey when he was a state assemblyman, before he was elected to Congress.