Seeking a power job? Try running for comptroller
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, left, with New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer at the National Action Network convention in Manhattan on April 9, 2014. Credit: AP / Seth Wenig
In the endless scrum among elected officials over fiscal issues, comptrollers seem to hold a unique edge.
A recent example: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo clashed with Mayor Bill de Blasio over the homeless problem, which had become a visible embarrassment to City Hall. The governor made waves by vowing to expand supervision.
But State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli soon published a reality check of sorts — an audit showing the governor’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance failed for some time to adequately monitor existing shelters.
Another example: De Blasio has been pushing an affordable-housing agenda. Last month, City Comptroller Scott Stringer issued a report that the city owns more than 1,000 vacant lots that could be developed but were allowed to languish.
De Blasio aides contested its conclusions as misleading, but the report succeeded in commanding attention outside the mayor’s numerous pronouncements on the topic.
Chief executives can choose if they wish to say a comptroller is only seeking political relevance, perhaps in a bid to move up. But since these reports take time to produce and require responses from target agencies, comptrollers can insulate themselves from charges of a “quick hit.”
“Comptrollers are the counterweight,” said a veteran city insider. “This is the era for comptrollers — and also state attorney generals — playing a big role. They’re not part of the administration but have large staffs and subpoena powers.”
As back-to-back attorneys generals, Cuomo and his predecessor Eliot Spitzer certainly drew enough positive attention to ascend to governor. Now, exercising his regulatory powers, incumbent Eric T. Schneiderman is charging fraud against Donald Trump’s defunct “university,” in cases from before Trump was running for president.
Also, comptrollers deliver a more coherent check on government functions than legislatures do.
Last week, it was the absence of a comptroller in the town of North Hempstead for 12 months in 2014 and 2015 that drew attention after an ex-secretary’s arrest on charges of embezzling $98,000 in cash from the town’s Solid Waste Management Authority. As Newsday reported, the former employee Helen McCann’s lawyer has denied the charges, calling them “a complete fabrication.”
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
