City comptroller candidates Mark Levine and Justin Brannan engaged in a Tuesday morning debate that played more as a tame conversation on managing the city’s finances.
Offering a rare reprieve from an election season dominated by the heated Democratic mayoral primary, the nearly 90-minute event at the New York Law School saw Levine, the Manhattan borough president, and Brannan, the City Council’s Finance chair, speak about their qualifications and vision for the fiscal watchdog post. The job opened up after current city Comptroller Brad Lander launched his own campaign for mayor last summer.
The debate, the first of the comptroller’s race, was hosted by the Citizens Budget Commission and New York Law School and was moderated by CBC Chair Andrew Rein and Ben Max, the executive editor and program director at the school’s Center for New York City & State Law.
Throughout the event, there was little daylight between the two candidates’ answers to many of the moderators’ questions. The most raucous part of the event came when Ismael Malave, another comptroller candidate who did not raise enough money to qualify for the debate, repeatedly interrupted to demand he be able to join.
Levine and Brannan both said they would use the comptroller’s office to address the city’s ongoing affordability crisis and safeguard the city’s finances —including its five pension funds and over $100 billion budget — from looming funding cuts by President Trump’s administration.
Levine said he wants to wield the comptroller’s office to combat the city’s ongoing affordable housing shortage and its “broken” nonprofit contract payment system.
“I will use the powers of this office to address critical challenges in New York City, including our epic affordability crisis,” Levine said. “I will be an activist comptroller, just as I have been an activist leader throughout my entire career.”
Levine has released a plan to leverage the city’s pension funds to finance the construction and preservation of 75,000 affordable housing units over the next decade.
Brannan said the city’s massive budget is its “sharpest tool” for lowering New Yorkers’ cost of living. At the same time, he said the comptroller’s office will have to stand “in the breach between the federal government and our most vulnerable here in the city.”
Bracing for Trump cuts
However, the two candidates did appear to diverge on how the city should prepare for the impact of the Trump administration’s moves to cut spending on critical social safety net programs. Nearly 10% of the city budget — roughly $11 billion — consists of federal grands that fund programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Medicaid, and Section 8 housing vouchers.
To prepare for Trump’s funding cuts, Levine said he supports adding $1 billion to the city’s rainy day fund and would advocate for being more cautious about how it spends money going into the next fiscal year. He also spoke to the often-cited concern about the city “underbudgeting” recurring costs such as NYPD overtime 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 said. “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 putting more money in the city’s reserves would give the Trump administration the impression that the city can handle its cuts.
“The political calculation there is that we don’t want Washington to think that we can handle these cuts,” Brannan said. “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 much money the city has in its coffers, said City Hall needs to be more transparent about its funds before deciding how much should be set aside for the future.
“There is not a city in this country that can survive without federal grants and federal subsidy,” Brannan said. “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.”
