Overshadowed by the drama-filled mayoral race, a quietly competitive contest is brewing between the candidates vying to become New York City comptroller: the city’s top watchdog and fiscal officer, charged with auditing its multibillion-dollar budget, scrutinizing mayoral agencies and stewarding the mammoth $285 billion pension fund for retired city workers.
Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and Brooklyn City Councilman Justin Brannan are the leading candidates to replace Brad Lander, who gave up a near-guaranteed second term as comptroller to run for mayor instead. Little daylight separates the two Democrats on most policy issues, with the June 24 primary instead likely to hinge on a combination of geography, coalition-building and campaign tactics such as notable endorsements.
But the stakes are high: Whoever assumes control of the 700-person comptroller’s office and its $123 million budget will do so as the city contends with likely federal funding cuts and the recent revelation that the Trump administration plucked $80 million from the city’s own bank accounts. Then there’s the added fact that nearly all past comptrollers use the citywide office as a springboard to run for mayor — though none has been successful since Abe Beame in 1973, and both Levine and Brannan claim they have no higher aspirations.
In interviews, both candidates laid out visions that go beyond the nominal duties of the office and pledged to tackle the city’s affordability crisis. Levine, who has focused on housing as borough president and said he would be an “activist comptroller,” has campaigned on a promise to invest $2.5 billion of the city’s pension funds into building or preserving as many as 75,000 homes in a decade. (City laws allow about 2% of the pension funds, or about $5.7 billion, to be used for “economically targeted investments,” but only a portion of that money is currently being used.)
“We have 300 projects around New York City where the site is all set, the developer’s been selected, zoning is all in place, and they’re just sitting and waiting for financing,” Levine said. “There is an opportunity to use pension money, consistent with our need to be good stewards of retirees’ savings, to invest in projects that might not otherwise get financed.”
Brannan similarly pledged to invest pension funds into housing for city employees, and said he would steer another 1% of pension money toward an investment fund for minority- and women-owned businesses. He also made news this week by pledging to divest $1 billion in pension funds from Tesla, given Elon Musk’s actions in the Trump administration.
“I’ve overseen and negotiated the largest municipal budget in the country, and I’ve been right about the budget, not because I’m a math wizard but because I’m unafraid to speak truth to power,” said Brannan, a former punk-rock guitarist who tends to speak in catchy aphorisms.
A handful of other candidates are also running for comptroller, including Brooklyn state Sen. Kevin Parker and former city official Ismael Malave, but both have raised far less money than the two front-runners and are running less visible campaigns. Another contender, Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar, dropped out of the comptroller race in January to run instead for public advocate.
Wonky disagreements
Both leading candidates have fiscal experience to campaign on: Brannan, as chair of the council’s finance committee, has played a leading role in budget negotiations with Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and has pushed to restore funding for libraries and schools. Levine got his start in public affairs as the founder of a credit union in Upper Manhattan that supports lower-income families.
But much of the intrigue surrounds campaign strategy. Levine, thus far, seems to have a leg up: he has raised the most money, with $2.4 million in the bank to Brannan’s $1.6 million, though matching funds could help close the gap. Levine also has a borough-wide perch, while Brannan’s Bay Ridge-based council district includes fewer than 200,000 people.
Donors to Levine’s campaign included former City Planning Director Amanda Burden, PR executive Steven Rubenstein, Yellowstone Realty CEO Issac Hera and GFP Real Estate chairman Jeffrey Gural. Brannan’s campaign has gotten checks from Maimonides Medical Center CEO Kenneth Gibbs, Broadway theater owner James Nederlander and Anthony Argento, founder of the Brooklyn film studio Broadway Stages.
Levine has also won top-tier endorsements from U.S. Reps. Adriano Espaillat, Dan Goldman, Jerry Nadler and Ritchie Torres, and cut into Brannan’s territory by winning support from Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and 13 of Brannan’s council colleagues. Brannan’s endorsers include nine council members, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, labor unions including the Uniformed Firefighters Association and Transport Workers Union — and, notably, the progressive Working Families Party, which backed Brannan last month despite his sometimes-centrist leanings.
“The advantages are inherently with Mark, but Justin is a good campaigner and 90 days [until the June 24 primary] is a lifetime,” said Chris Coffey, a Democratic strategist who is unaffiliated with either comptroller campaign but is informally advising Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral bid. “I would look for this to be a race.”
A handful of policy disagreements did emerge at a March 18 comptroller debate, a wonky affair hosted by the Citizens Budget Commission.
Asked whether the city should add $1 billion to its reserves to guard against federal cuts, Levine said yes, while Brannan said doing so would signal to the Trump administration that New York could afford the reductions. Asked which agency they would audit first, Brannan named the Department of Education, while Levine said the Housing Preservation and Development department.
But both men agreed that they would look critically at the city’s high spending on uniformed agencies like the NYPD. And both pledged to address the city’s chronically late payments to nonprofit contractors, an issue that has bedeviled Mayor Adams and Comptroller Lander, although they differed on their approach. Brannan said the solution lies in increasing staffing at the city budget office to process contracts faster and signing more multi-year contracts to avoid registration delays; Levine said he would push for legislation to bring the city’s five-person Procurement Policy Board under the control of the comptroller rather than the mayor, and allow invoices to be paid even if small technical issues are raised by auditors.
A few other variables remain in play that could shake up the race before June. Leading labor unions including the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council and 32BJ SEIU have not made endorsements, nor have members of Congress like Hakeem Jeffries or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Then there’s the New York Times editorial board: the paper’s endorsement of Lander in 2021 helped him overcome initial front-runner Corey Johnson, but the Times’ decision to end local endorsements means it will play no role in this year’s race.
With Eric Adams’ re-election prospects looking slim, whoever wins the comptroller race may well become the chief watchdog of a new mayor — be it former Gov. Andrew Cuomo or someone else.
“Corruption’s an ever-present threat in New York City government,” Levine said. “People have this idea that [since] the Boss Tweed era it’s faded as a threat, but the truth is it’s something we need to be vigilant for, even in 2025.”
