Comptroller
New York City
New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer has spent his public service career fighting for New York’s middle class, strengthening the City’s fiscal health and championing good government. The New York Times described Mr. Stringer as a public servant “committed to the principles of good government” and “a strong voice for civil rights and marriage equality, a defender of immigrants and the poor.” Mr. Stringer was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1992, representing Manhattan’s West Side for 13 years, and won election in 2005 as Manhattan Borough President. He was elected Comptroller on November 5, 2013.
As investment advisor, custodian and trustee of the City’s five pension funds, Mr. Stringer implemented a six-point ethics reform package for the administration of the City’s $160 billion public pension system. This groundbreaking effort includes a ban on placement agents, who have repeatedly been embroiled in pay-to-play scandals in previous administrations. He appointed the City’s first-ever Chief Diversity Officer, to increase participation of Minority and Women-Owned Businesses seeking to do business with the City and diversify corporate management, workforces and boards. The Comptroller also issued the first ever letter grades to measure City government’s spending with Minority/Women-owned Business Enterprises, which found that, on the average, the City received a “D” for its efforts to date. With nearly $18 billion spent annually by the City on goods and services and less than 4 percent of contracts going to M/WBEs, Comptroller Stringer’s letter grades are a clarion call for City agencies to expand opportunity with these vendors across all five boroughs.
As Comptroller, Mr. Stringer has used his audit power to investigate school overcrowding and the New York City Housing Authority. He created a Sandy oversight unit to monitor how federal disaster relief and recovery dollars are being used to rebuild neighborhoods and make New York a more sustainable city. His ClaimStat program—a data-driven analysis of the thousands of legal claims filed against the City each year—is designed to save tax dollars by identifying troubling trends across all City agencies before they lead to multi-million dollar settlements.
A longtime advocate of community-driven planning and environmental justice, Comptroller Stringer authored an amicus brief to the New York Court of Appeals in a case in which the Court ruled that local communities had a right to ban fracking under their zoning code. Earlier this year, Comptroller Stringer’s report on arts education in NYC public schools revealed that 28 percent of schools had no fulltime, certified arts teachers, with the biggest gaps being felt in New York’s poorest neighborhoods. The report led to a restoration of $23 million in funding for students throughout the five boroughs. Scott M. Stringer was born and raised in Washington Heights, where he attended local public schools and graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He and his wife, Elyse, live with their two sons, Maxwell and Miles, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
