TRUST ME TO WATCH MONEY
Top contenders for comptroller tell why you should let them keep an eye on city’s finances
As far as elected office goes, city comptroller is far from being the most glamorous.
But with the city in a precarious financial state in spite of a recent huge injection of federal cash, the role is arguably more important than at any time in recent memory.
The comptroller is responsible for auditing city spending with an eye to finding waste, as well as overseeing pension funds for more than 600,000 current and retired municipal workers. Previous comptrollers have also acted as public gadflies, hectoring the mayor and other elected officers on the major issues of the day.
One candidate, current Councilman Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn), has promised to bring an activist role to the office by going after the NYPD budget and championing other priorities of the city’s left. Others have focused on more traditional responsibilities of the office while promising to facilitate growth. The recent entrance of Council Speaker Corey Johnson (D-Manhattan) into the race has shaken up the contest — and invited digs that the office is just his second choice after he abandoned his hope of becoming mayor.
Here’s a look at some of the leading candidates in the June 22 Democratic primary.
BRIAN BENJAMIN
State Sen. Brian Benjamin touts his financial expertise to show he can get the job done. A Harlem native who graduated from Harvard Business School, Benjamin, 44, worked on investment banking and wealth management for Morgan Stanley for about three years before entering politics. He became a state senator in 2017 and is chairman of the Senate’s Budget and Revenues Committee. Benjamin was the prime sponsor of the Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Bill, passed last year, which allows prosecutors to charge police officers who injure or kill someone by placing them in a chokehold.
He indicated he would take a nuanced approach to the NYPD and other city agencies as comptroller.
“There are a number of components to public safety. We need to think about it broader than law enforcement,” Benjamin told the Daily News.
He said he’d audit the NYPD budget with an eye to “stripping funding” from programs that don’t work and supporting funding for non-NYPD efforts that address public safety, such as mental health response and jobs programs.
Benjamin would also aim to have about 10% of the city’s pension funds managed by MWBEs.
“Right now, the consultants are very risk-averse and recommend to the boards the same old, same old people,” he said. “Part of [changing] that is making sure that talented firms of color get the opportunity to be heard.”
MICHELLE CARUSO-CABRERA
Longtime business journalist Michelle Caruso-Cabrera has been taking the same flame-throwing approach to the comptroller campaign that she did during her unsuccessful Democratic primary challenge to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx, Queens) last year.
“Unlike my opponents, I am not a professional politician,” she told The News.
Caruso-Cabrera, 52, spent more than 20 years covering business for CNBC. She switched parties from Republican to Democrat in 2015.
She disavowed extreme proposals she advocated in her 2010 book “You Know I’m Right: More Prosperity, Less Government.” Those reportedly included axing Social Security and shutting down the U.S. Department of Education, among other agencies.
“My concern about them at the time was the solvency of the programs, and that is my North Star,” Caruso-Cabrera told The News. “We’ve got to make sure people have the money they expect when it comes to retirement.”
She said she’d call on years of experience reporting on balance sheets and income statements to lead audits of city agencies.
“I didn’t get into this race because I actually really want to be mayor,” Caruso-Cabrera said, taking a shot at rivals Johnson and Zach Iscol. “I really want to be the comptroller.”
ZACH ISCOL
Nonprofit founder Iscol is another newcomer to city politics. After a privileged upbringing including studies at the Phillips Exeter Academy and Cornell University, he joined the Marines and fought in the grim second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq.
Upon returning to civilian life, Iscol, 42, founded a nonprofit called Headstrong to help fellow veterans with mental health. More recently, he served as deputy director of the emergency field hospital established last year at the Javits Center in Manhattan at the height of the pandemic. A longtime friend of Chelsea Clinton’s, he counts former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a mentor.
It took just a few weeks for Iscol to throw in the towel on his 2021 mayoral run, but he’s betting the same moderate stance he advocated for City Hall would serve him well as comptroller.
“There’s a lot of places where you can look where the city is not doing its job,” he said in a recent interview. “There’s a huge opportunity to use the [comptroller] office, in particular, to help lead New York’s economic recovery.”
Toward that end, he’s advocating a “five-borough investment strategy” in which some city pension funds would be invested in small businesses and community banks.
His other proposals include expanding the comptroller’s existing “Economically Targeted Investment” program to boost affordable housing and working with the city Department of Education to diagnose the extent of learning loss during the pandemic.
“How often in the past year … has New York City been caught on its back foot?” he said. “One of the things that I’ll use the office for is to audit the city’s preparedness for future natural disasters, for a future pandemic.”
COREY JOHNSON
Johnson stunned the city’s political scene when he abruptly dropped out of the mayoral race, in which he’d been considered a likely front-runner, in September.
Continuing one of the defining themes of his time in politics, he presented his decision in confessional form, saying he didn’t want to run while dealing with mental health problems amid the pandemic. The move also came in the wake of fierce criticism of his handling of the city’s budget, in which New Yorkers from both sides of the political spectrum slammed him and Mayor de Blasio for purported cuts to the NYPD.
Johnson, 38, says he’s gotten help the past few months — and still wants to serve.
“The comptroller’s office is going to really be as important as ever in New York City’s recovery, and given my track record and experience on knowing the budget ... I think it’s a good fit for me,” he told The News.
Under Johnson’s three years and counting as speaker, the Council has taken on both high-profile legislation — such as voting to shut down the troubled jail complex on Rikers Island — and a range of members’ pet causes, like banning the sale of foie gras.
He also worked with committee chairmen on hearings aimed at holding the mayor accountable for spending.
“It’s going to be incredibly important that as we’re getting this federal infusion of money,” Johnson said, referring to the recently passed American Rescue Plan,
“the comptroller’s office is going to have to really track in a very transparent, coherent, public way how all of this money is being spent.”
Johnson recently began classes to get his bachelor’s degree from Columbia University. He said he’d continue to study part-time if he becomes comptroller.
“It’s all on Zoom and I actually don’t think most of the students know or recognize who I am, “he said with a laugh.
BRAD LANDER
Lander has established himself as one of the most progressive pols on the City Council. He’s passed legislation to protect freelancers and fast-food workers and championed LGBT causes. Lander has also been a frequent critic of NYPD conduct, participating in last summer’s heated protests and voting against the latest budget, saying it didn’t go far enough on defunding the police.
“We need government to show up in a bold way to achieve a just recovery,” said Lander, 51.
He looked to the post-World War II era when leaders invested in CUNY, Mitchell-Lama housing and the subway as an example for New York today.
“They built a platform for shared growth. That’s the model I think we need for the city; that’s what I want to do as comptroller,” he said.
Lander’s proposals represent an activist take on being comptroller. Those include creating a “NYC Land Bank” to facilitate the creation of affordable housing and using audits to “get to the root causes of … police misconduct.”
KEVIN PARKER
During his career in politics, state Sen. Kevin Parker of Brooklyn has made headlines for outbursts like striking a traffic agent, smashing an aide’s glasses and telling a GOP spokeswoman she should commit suicide.
Charges in the traffic agent case were dropped when he agreed to take anger management classes.
That pattern of behavior shows he really cares, Parker told The News.
“I’m somebody who’s always fought hard for my community, period,” he said. “Most of these incidents I did were in the service of the Democratic Conference of the state Senate.”
Parker, 54, says prior to entering politics, he worked on government affairs and municipal finance for UBS PaineWebber.
He won the state Senate seat covering a swath of Brooklyn from Park Slope to East Flatbush in 2002. Parker currently chairs the Energy and Telecommunications Committee.
Incumbent Scott Stringer, who’s leaving office due to term limits, and de Blasio have promised to divest billions of dollars in pension funds from investments tied to the fossil fuel industry.
He also wants to invest more city pension funds with MWBEs and work with financial institutions to get capital to small businesses.
DAVID WEPRIN
A longtime elected official for a conservative-leaning slice of central Queens, Assemblyman David Weprin is taking a moderate approach to the comptroller race.
He also has a background on Wall Street, where he says he worked on municipal bonds for 25 years for firms including at Sterne, Agee & Leach before joining the City Council in 2002.
“This is actually the worst fiscal crisis the city has ever been in,” he said.
Weprin’s main goal is to get the best possible returns on pension investments.
“I ... have the relevant finance experience in both the public and private sector to make a major contribution,” he said, noting he was chairman of the Council’s Finance Committee after 9/11 and after the 2008 crisis.
Weprin promised to open comptroller offices in the outer boroughs if he’s elected. Money, money, money Fifteen candidates have registered campaign accounts with the city’s Campaign Finance Board.
Lesser-known Democrats include lawyer Terri Liftin and Reshma Patel, president of a Manhattan political club.
Republican contenders include stock trader John Tabacco.
The winner of the Democratic primary is likely to win the November general election in overwhelmingly Democratic New York City.
Lander has raised the most funds and had $3.4 million cash on hand as of the latest public filing.
He was trailed by Iscol, who had $1.7 million, and Benjamin, $1.3 million.
With the pandemic, Gov. Cuomo’s scandals and mayoral candidates dominating the headlines, one of the biggest challenges in the comptroller race is simply getting voters’ attention.