The New York City Comptroller
Summary
New York City's independently elected chief financial officer and auditor: in FY2025 it registered $42.45 billion in city contracts and oversaw $294.6 billion in pension assets, on a FY2027 operating budget of $127.0 million and 783 people -- about $14.80 per New Yorker.
What is this organization?
What does it do?
In fiscal year 2025, under then-Comptroller Brad Lander, the office's Bureau of Audit and Investigations issued 284 recommendations⧉ to city agencies, and its Bureau of Contracts Administration registered 12,955 new procurement and revenue contracts worth $42.45 billion⧉. As trustee to the city's five public pension systems, the office also oversaw $294.6 billion in pension assets as of June 30, 2025⧉, which returned 10.3 percent net of fees that year against a 7.0 percent actuarial target.
What does it cost to run — money and people?
New York City's FY2027 Adopted Budget -- the currently governing one, since the city's fiscal year runs July-June -- funds the Comptroller's own office at $127,028,130⧉ -- up 3.3 percent from FY2026's $123.0 million adopted level -- and supports 783 full-time positions⧉, unchanged for a third straight year, plus 8 full-time-equivalent positions. Measured against the city's 8,584,629 residents as of July 2025⧉ -- the latest available count -- that works out to about $14.80 per New Yorker.
View data as table
| First Deputy Comptroller | 59.8 | 453 positions |
|---|---|---|
| Third Deputy Comptroller | 41.9 | 139 positions |
| Second Deputy Comptroller | 21.7 | 168 positions |
| Executive Management | 3.6 | 23 positions |
Why is it good for society?
The comptroller's independence gives it eyes on city agencies that they don't have on themselves. A 2025 audit found that ghost, temporary, and obscured license plates were letting drivers dodge speed cameras⧉, costing the city at least $108 million in lost fines -- a finding that pushed the city and state to announce a joint enforcement task force⧉. Without an office with subpoena-like power to examine any agency's books on a mandated cycle, revenue leaks like that -- or contracts moving without registration scrutiny -- would surface only once they became a budget crisis.
- The Comptroller's own FY2027 operating budget ($127.0M, 783 people) is a rounding error next to what the office oversees: $42.45 billion in FY2025 contract registrations and $294.6 billion in pension assets.
- A single 2025 audit -- of 's speed camera program -- found at least $108 million in lost revenue from unenforceable ghost and obscured plates, more than the office's entire FY2025 operating budget.
Your handles.* File a complaint about an unpaid prevailing wage or living wage on a city contract using the Comptroller's complaint form. To flag a City agency's spending, contracting, or performance for audit, contact the Bureau of Audit and Investigations directly. To see what the city registered a specific contract for, search the Comptroller's Checkbook NYC transparency tool.
Sources(9) ▾
- Office of the New York City Comptroller, Office History (2026-01-01) — The Comptroller's own official history page -- source for the office's 1801 creation, its 1938 conversion into an independent City agency, and confirmation that Mark Levine has served as Comptroller since January 1, 2026, succeeding Brad Lander. comptroller.nyc.gov · original document
- City of New York, New York City Charter, As Amended Through July 2004 -- Chapter 5 (Comptroller), Sections 91-93 (2004-07-01) — Official nyc.gov-hosted copy of the City Charter; the canonical current codification (American Legal Publishing's codelibrary.amlegal.com) blocked automated access, so this 2004-amended edition is used for the structural provisions of Chapter 5 that are unlikely to have changed in substance -- the comptroller is elected citywide for the same term as the mayor (Section 91) and has broad power to audit and investigate all matters affecting city finances, including a mandated four-year audit cycle across every city agency (Section 93). Not used for anything that could plausibly be stale (e.g., the salary figure, which the office's current published salary contradicts). Corroborated for currency by doc-comptroller-office-history, which independently confirms the comptroller's audit and finance-oversight role as of 2026. nyc.gov · original document
- Office of the New York City Comptroller, Bureau of Audit and Investigations, Report to the Mayor and City Council on City Comptroller Audit Operations, Fiscal Year 2025 (2025-12-30) — The Comptroller's own City Charter-mandated annual report on audit operations, covering FY2025 (the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025), released December 30, 2025 under then-Comptroller Brad Lander -- source for the 284 recommendations issued to agencies and for the Speed Camera Program audit's $108 million lost-revenue finding. comptroller.nyc.gov · original document
- Office of the New York City Comptroller, Bureau of Contracts Administration, Annual Summary Contracts Report for the City of New York, Fiscal Year 2025 (2025-10-01) — The Comptroller's own annual accounting of every contract action it registered citywide in FY2025 -- source for the 12,955 new contracts / $42.45 billion total-value figure (Table 1, Topline Citywide Numbers). comptroller.nyc.gov · original document
- Office of the New York City Comptroller, New York City Pension Funds' Returns for Fiscal Year 2025 (2025-09-01) — The Comptroller's own release of FY2025 investment performance for the five City pension systems it acts as investment advisor/trustee for -- source for the $294.6 billion in assets as of June 30, 2025 and the 10.3% net-of-fees aggregate return against a 7.0% actuarial target. comptroller.nyc.gov · original document
- NYC Mayor's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), via NYC Open Data, Expense Budget (Adopted, Financial Plan, and Modified conditions by unit of appropriation and object code) (2025-06-30) — 's official Expense Budget dataset, published on NYC Open Data and updated after each of the year's three budget milestones (Preliminary/January, Executive/April-May, Adopted/June); each fiscal year's rows are tagged with a publication_date, so the dataset carries THREE snapshots per fiscal year and must be filtered to a single publication_date to avoid summing across them (confirmed: unfiltered sums for FY2026 agency 015 came to $368,995,371 across 3 publications, exactly 3x the single-snapshot total). New York City's fiscal year runs July-June, so as of this entry's July 16, 2026 write date, FY2026 (July 2025-June 2026) had already closed and FY2027's Adopted Budget -- published June 30, 2026 -- is the currently operative one; this entry therefore uses fiscal_year='2027', publication_date='2026-06-30' as its primary budget figure ($127,028,130 for agency 015, reconciling exactly to the sum of its 8 unit-of-appropriation lines, 783 positions, matching doc-omb-adopt26-stafflevels independently), with fiscal_year='2026', publication_date='2025-06-30' ($122,998,457, also 783 positions) retained as the same-methodology prior-year comparator for the year-over-year delta. Queried directly via the public Socrata API; the capture URL above is the exact reproducible query for the FY2027 by-division breakdown. data.cityofnewyork.us · original document
- NYC Mayor's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Adopted 2026 Financial Plan -- Full-Time and Full-Time Equivalent Headcount (2025-06-30) — 's official staffing-level schedule accompanying the Adopted 2026 Financial Plan -- Agency 015 (Office of the Comptroller) table gives the Forecast for 6/30/2026: 783 full-time positions (639 City-funded + 144 IFA-funded) plus 8 full-time-equivalent positions, for a total of 791. Superseded as the operative headcount source by doc-omb-adopt26-stafflevels below (New York City's fiscal year runs July-June, so FY2026 ended June 30, 2026, two weeks before this entry was written); retained because it is the source for the FY2026-vs-FY2027 same-methodology comparison and shows the headcount has been flat at 783/791 across three consecutive Adopted Plans. nyc.gov · original document
- NYC Mayor's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Adopted 2027 Financial Plan -- Full-Time and Full-Time Equivalent Headcount (2026-06-30) — 's official staffing-level schedule accompanying the Adopted 2027 Financial Plan (New York City's currently operative Adopted Budget, since FY2027 began July 1, 2026) -- Agency 015 (Office of the Comptroller) table gives the Forecast for 6/30/2027: 783 full-time positions (639 City-funded + 144 IFA-funded) plus 8 full-time-equivalent positions, for a total of 791 -- identical to the FY2026 level. nyc.gov · original document
- NYC Department of City Planning, New York City's Population Estimates and Trends, 2026 March Release (2026-03-01) — The City Planning Department's own release of the U.S. Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 population estimates for New York City -- gives 8,584,629 as the city's population as of July 1, 2025, the per-resident denominator for this entry's cost-per-resident KPI (better_metrics.md discipline). s-media.nyc.gov · original document
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New York City's Office of the Comptroller is the city's chief financial officer and chief auditor, created by the City Council in 1801⧉ and made an independent City agency in 1938⧉. Under Chapter 5 of the City Charter⧉, the comptroller is elected citywide for the same term as the mayor⧉ and holds broad power to audit and investigate all matters affecting city finances⧉, including every agency and contract, on a mandated four-year cycle. Mark Levine took office as Comptroller on January 1, 2026⧉.