Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and Metropolis Council Member Justin Brannan engaged in a tame dialog in regards to the metropolis’s funds within the first comptroller debate of the 2025 Democratic major. Tuesday, March 18, 2025.
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Metropolis comptroller candidates Mark Levine and Justin Brannan engaged in a Tuesday morning debate that performed extra as a tame dialog on managing town’s funds.
Providing a uncommon reprieve from an election season dominated by the heated Democratic mayoral major, the almost 90-minute occasion on the New York Legislation College noticed Levine, the Manhattan borough president, and Brannan, the Metropolis Council’s Finance chair, talk about their {qualifications} and imaginative and prescient for the fiscal watchdog submit. The job opened up after present metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander launched his personal marketing campaign for mayor final summer season.
The controversy, the primary of the comptroller’s race, was hosted by the Residents Funds Fee and New York Legislation College and was moderated by CBC Chair Andrew Rein and Ben Max, the chief editor and program director on the college’s Middle for New York Metropolis & State Legislation.
All through the occasion, there was little daylight between the 2 candidates’ solutions to most of the moderators’ questions. Essentially the most raucous a part of the occasion got here when Ismael Malave, one other comptroller candidate who didn’t elevate sufficient cash to qualify for the controversy, repeatedly interrupted to demand he have the ability to be a part of.
Levine and Brannan each mentioned they’d use the comptroller’s workplace to deal with town’s ongoing affordability disaster and safeguard town’s funds —together with its 5 pension funds and over $100 billion funds — from looming funding cuts by President Trump’s administration.
Levine mentioned he desires to wield the comptroller’s workplace to fight town’s ongoing reasonably priced housing scarcity and its “broken” nonprofit contract cost system.
“I will use the powers of this office to address critical challenges in New York City, including our epic affordability crisis,” Levine mentioned. “I will be an activist comptroller, just as I have been an activist leader throughout my entire career.”
New York Metropolis Comptroller candidate Mark Levine confronted off towards Justin Brannan in a debate over Comptroller
Levine has launched a plan to leverage town’s pension funds to finance the development and preservation of 75,000 reasonably priced housing items over the following decade.
Brannan mentioned town’s large funds is its “sharpest tool” for reducing New Yorkers’ price of dwelling. On the identical time, he mentioned the comptroller’s workplace should stand “in the breach between the federal government and our most vulnerable here in the city.”
Bracing for Trump cuts
Nevertheless, the 2 candidates did seem to diverge on how town ought to put together for the impression of the Trump administration’s strikes to chop spending on vital social security web packages. Almost 10% of town funds — roughly $11 billion — consists of federal grands that fund packages just like the Supplemental Diet Help Program, Medicaid, and Part 8 housing vouchers.
To organize for Trump’s funding cuts, Levine mentioned he helps including $1 billion to town’s wet day fund and would advocate for being extra cautious about the way it spends cash going into the following fiscal 12 months. He additionally spoke to the often-cited concern in regards to the metropolis “underbudgeting” recurring prices equivalent to NYPD time beyond regulation spending and the CityFHEPS housing voucher program.
“I want to be set up for the coming fiscal year in a way that will insulate New York City and New Yorkers from the blows that could come from Washington,” Levine mentioned. “Now is the time to prepare. Let’s not wait for the Republican tax bill to be passed in six months’ time.”
Brannan disagreed, saying he believes placing extra money within the metropolis’s reserves would give the Trump administration the impression that town can deal with its cuts.
Metropolis Council Member Justin Brannan.Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
“The political calculation there is that we don’t want Washington to think that we can handle these cuts,” Brannan mentioned. “So putting more money aside would then signal to Washington that we’ve got the money we need to withstand their cuts. So we have to be careful there.”
Brannan, who has for years battled with Mayor Eric Adams’ administration over how a lot cash town has in its coffers, mentioned Metropolis Corridor must be extra clear about its funds earlier than deciding how a lot needs to be put aside for the long run.
“There is not a city in this country that can survive without federal grants and federal subsidy,” Brannan mentioned. “But because [the mayor’s budget office] has done such a great job of being so opaque about where we stand, and the council has had to fight so hard to get that transparency, it’s really handicapping us in this moment.”
