Justin Brannan Interview Transcript

A transcript of The New York Editorial Board's interview with comptroller candidate Justin Brannan.

Justin Brannan, a City Council Member from Brooklyn and a candidate in the June 2025 Democratic primary for New York City Comptroller, spoke with The New York Editorial Board on the morning of June 5, 2025. (photo by Juan Manuel Benítez)

Participating journalists: Juan Manuel Benítez, Nicole Gelinas, Ben Max, Myles Miller, Harry Siegel, Ben Smith, Liena Zagare.

Full Transcript

Mayoral Debate

Ben Smith
Thank you for coming in. I think we’ll start with last night’s debate.

Nicole Gelinas
What did you think of the [first mayoral] debate?

Justin Brannan
It was a cacophony.

Nicole Gelinas
In what way?

Justin Brannan
Just so many candidates on one stage. I think everyone got their points in, which is good. It’s hard for people like us who are so close to the flame on this stuff to zoom out, literally and figuratively, to really have the same eyeballs as someone who’s tuning into the race for the first time. I wish I could put myself into those eyeballs, but it’s very hard. It’s tough, you know, people focus very much on the presidential. What I always say is, people focus so much on the presidential elections, but your local elected officials have much more of an impact on your day-to-day life than the president. And yet it’s so hard to get people to tune into local elections. This is a huge citywide election, but it’s still a local election so, I don’t know. I don’t really know what to think.

Tough on Mayor Adams

Ben Smith
In your [PIX11] debate with [Mark] Levine, there was one thing we wanted to follow up on, which was this dispute about who has been tougher on Mayor Adams.

Justin Brannan
It’s not really a dispute. I think that the record is pretty clear that for the past three-and-a-half years in my role as finance chair it’s been my day job to hold Eric Adams accountable. I’ve led the charge under the leadership of the speaker, as chair of the budget committee, to fight back against over $1 billion in cuts that the mayor tried to make. I don’t think there’s any disputing that I was the face of many of those fights because of my role in the City Council. There are some people who joined us in those fights, and there’s some that didn’t. I think it’s convenient for folks now to say, "I did this and I did that." I think the record shows — people can tell if that’s true or not.

Myles Miller
When did you sour on Eric Adams? You were an Eric Adams guy. You were a Brooklyn guy. You were out front supporting him.

Justin Brannan
I think that’s part of my proven independence is the fact that I endorsed Eric Adams [in 2021]. I wasn’t early, but we endorsed. I believed in his vision for a blue-collar working-class mayor, an outer borough guy. That’s what I want. I want people that take quality of life seriously. I want people that take people’s concerns seriously and I endorsed the guy. Then after the first budget negotiations, and we saw how duplicitous they were willing to be, that’s when I really saw his administration for what they were, and it’s been like that ever since.

Ben Smith
Did that experience change how you see the job as mayor, see leadership? You knew Eric as this charismatic, eccentric, local Brooklyn guy and thought he would be a good mayor, and now think he hasn’t. Did that change how you see any of these bigger picture questions?

Justin Brannan
Probably, because I also supported de Blasio and worked for de Blasio in the Department of Education. He’s way more of an ideologue, obviously, than Eric. One of my regrets is that Eric never had a thing. De Blasio, even if you still do not look back fondly on him, just about everyone can admit that UPK was a game-changer for the city. It saves working families ten to thirty thousand dollars a year. Eric never had a thing. I think that’s part of why it was harder to forgive. It was just chaos from day one. Fighting with him over the budget and the games that they played with forecasting and the fact that we had to fight so hard to restore funding to the libraries. Like, what are you doing? We’re fighting with you over stuff that’s universally popular.

Waste In The City Budget, Ineffective City Government, Being Comptroller

Liena Zagare
Where do you see the biggest waste in the city in terms of the budget?

Justin Brannan
It comes down to— Obviously, the biggest agencies, you have the Department of Education, it’s a $40 billion budget. I don’t know a public school teacher or a public school parent who feels like their kid is getting a $40 billion educational outcome. I don’t know a public school teacher who feels they’re working with a classroom that’s funded to the tune of $40 billion. That’s because of a lot of waste and money not being spent in the right places. I think it comes down to reprioritization of how we’re spending this money. I don’t believe that, you know, I think it’s a misnomer — I’ve been at plenty of tables with folks who are much smarter than I am, who still think that we spend on debt, or they still think that, "Oh, the budget has grown so much." Well, it grows in line with the economy. We can only allocate or save the money that we take in. So, the $115 billion that we’re working with now is because that’s what we have. We don’t start from zero and just spend until we run out of ideas.

Ben Max
I’ve heard you say this a number of times, but the fact is, especially given the creation of the rainy day fund, you could be putting a lot more into reserves. You’re choosing to spend most of it.

Justin Brannan
We have almost $9 billion in reserves right now. Which is something that the Council actually fought really hard for, believe it or not. I think in this moment, where the Council has also identified another almost $2 billion over the remainder of [Fiscal Years] '25 and '26, more than OMB [the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget] has forecast. We’ve never had a president, an administration in Washington, that had their nose so far into our business. There is a real concern right now that if we are keeping too much powder dry, then we’re sitting ducks for more cuts. I understand those arguments.

I think it’s interesting that you have folks who historically have been very much, "Let’s deploy money into the communities that need it most," who are now becoming budget hawks and saying, "We have to put aside more money." We’ve got almost $9 billion in reserves. Yeah, we could easily zero out our reserves. Then, what do we do next year? My suggestion is that, yes, we’ve got $9 billion in reserves. We could probably carve out some more money for reserves, but we’ve got to deploy this money into the communities and the neighborhoods that need it most, when we’re under threat of more cuts from Washington.There’s a lot of people who I’ve never heard before say we need to put more money aside. OK, if we’re going to put more money aside that means we’re going to have to cut from somewhere else. Do you have any ideas for cuts? They don’t.

Ben Max
To your point about the education budget, you could extend that to the larger city budget, $115 billion. New Yorkers, virtually every survey you look at, do not feel the city’s headed in the right direction. What’s broken fundamentally between the high tax environment of the city, the high spending of city government, and people feeling like they’re not getting the city services they deserve and that the quality of life in the city is still not what it should be?

Justin Brannan
What you’ve just laid out is fundamental to why I’m running. I believe that so much of the dysfunction in the city, so much of, you know there’s the survey [Citizens Budget Commission] put out about how people feel about quality of life and delivery of essential city services. That’s a big reason why I’m running, because I believe the dysfunction, so much of it has to do with how we’re spending our money and how we’re not spending our money. The reason why people feel a certain way when they get their paycheck and see how much taxes we’re taking out is because they’re not seeing a return on their investment.

If they were seeing a return on their investment, they would say, "I’ll pay more taxes. If I got clean streets and safe parks, and great schools." But they’re not seeing it. Especially, I believe, in the outer boroughs where there’s a sentiment that the further away you live from City Hall, the less attention you get. And that’s real. There’s some neighborhoods who can rely on getting the full loaf of bread every year, and there’s some neighborhoods who have to fight over crumbs, and that’s very real. Whether it’s Southern Brooklyn or Southeast Queens or the South Bronx, or Staten Island there are some neighborhoods where the garbage gets picked up three times a day. There’s others where it gets picked up once every two days. I think, for me, as someone who’s an outer borough guy, really coming into those rooms focused on that borough equity lens of, there’s a reason why people feel this way and a lot of it is, unfortunately, grounded in the reality that we’re just not spending our money properly. So auditing the hell out of these agencies to figure out what we’re doing wrong and why, with a $40 billion Department of Education budget, people have such concerns with educational outcomes. That’s real.

Liena Zagare
Which agency would you audit first?

Justin Brannan
Department of Education, and then probably [Housing Preservation and Development] or Department of Homeless Services.

Liena Zagare
Every comptroller audits with good intentions. How would you ensure that things change as a result of your audit?

Justin Brannan
That's a great question. I think the audit needs to be the beginning. Two things: Number one, I think the comptroller’s office is typically the sleepy office where you only hear about the comptroller when they expose a huge corruption scandal or something like that, then you don’t hear from them. Number two, doing an audit — it has to just be the beginning of the process. Doing an audit is like, OK, I see that you’re broken down on the side of the highway. I lift open the hood of your car. I say, "Here’s what’s broken. Take care. I’ll see you later." You actually now have to come up with what are the policy prescriptions to fix what you found that was broken? How do you work with the state legislature? How do you work with the City Council to actually effect change to fix the dysfunction? I think a lot of times that’s lost. You see the headlines. Audit finds that NYCHA is a disaster, but then there’s never any follow-up to, what are we doing to fix it? I don’t know if some of that comes from the gratuitousness of people running for mayor and you want to get a headline to punch the administration in the face, and you don’t care as much about actually fixing the problem. That could be it. Your job is not to point at stuff and say that’s a problem. Your job is to then come up with ways to fix it.

Harry Siegel
Which comptrollers might have done that?

Justin Brannan
That’s a great question. I think Bill Thompson did a good job. John Liu exposed a lot of stuff. I can’t go back much further than that.

Harry Siegel
You’re talking about this as like, audit the hell out of things and a watchdog thing. You’ve got a different role vis-à-vis the budget right now as the finance chair. Talk for a bit specifically about what you’d want to do as comptroller for borough equity, to keep whoever’s the mayor honest. What tools you’d use and how exactly you’d use them? Because most of what you’re talking about right now, you really don’t control [as comptroller], and it’s what voters are interested in but it’s adjacent to the job at best.

Justin Brannan
I think right now in this moment, because of the existential threat of Washington and funding cuts from Washington, I think people across the country are going to learn what their local comptrollers and treasurers do pretty quickly; I hope. Because you have to potentially do more with less, and because you have to fight back when Washington is trying to claw back money. But you can also do audits not just for efficiency but also for equity, to expose the fact that some of these agencies are giving more time and attention and spending more money on some areas over others.

That’s what makes people feel a certain way. Some neighborhoods have great parks and great schools, how come we don’t? And I think that’s a choice, of how the money is being spent. So auditing agencies to expose that and to shine a light on that, I think is powerful. I see it now in the City Council when the comptroller puts out a report, my colleagues listen so that you can’t underestimate the bully pulpit of the role. I think it’s important to elect someone who has a track record of being independent and willing to speak truth to power and call out the mayor, whoever the next mayor is, and to empower people by– I don’t want it to be the old days of the politician in the back of the bar smoking a cigar, and you don’t know anything. He’s going to tell you how things are going to be. I like to demystify and empower people by making them understand that a $115 billion budget is made up of your tax dollars, and you should feel a certain way if you’re not seeing their return on your investment.

Harry Siegel
So if nobody’s saying they’re getting their money's worth now, we have a comptroller now who's putting out reports, doing audits, I’m asking specifically what tools and things you’d use and what you’d use them to focus on in terms of producing results?

Justin Brannan
I would focus on audits that don’t only look at efficiencies, but look to expose the clear disparity in how money is spent in different boroughs. It comes up every year in budget hearings where folks in the far reaches of the outer boroughs, when they’re grilling, when they’ve got their one chance to grill the agencies during the executive budget hearings, their questions are largely centered on, "How come my neighborhood isn’t getting X when I see the other neighborhoods getting Y?" And I think there’s power in exposing that.

Ben Smith
When you say that, is there a specific thing that comes to mind for you in Bay Ridge?

Justin Brannan
Let’s put it this way. Let’s say with Sanitation. If I don’t take discretionary money that each Council member gets to support increased garbage pickups, say in Southern Coney Island, it doesn’t happen on its own. Whereas, other neighborhoods, it does, and members are not using that money to put towards supplemental sanitation services. It’s small stuff like that, too, that I think is—

Ben Max
That’s because the Department of Sanitation has determined what the adequate amount of garbage pickup is.

Justin Brannan
Right. And I don’t agree with some of that. Here’s another thing, OK, I made a huge part of my time as a Council member to try to renovate every park and playground in my district. Most of these parks and playgrounds haven’t been renovated since I was a kid playing. I don’t think that renovating parks and playgrounds should be left up to the whim and the charity of a local council member. It should be— It’s been 30 years, it’s time to update that playground. If the local Council member wants to put an extra cherry on top and a few more fancy swings, fine, but it should be automatic. Some of this stuff should not be left up to the whim of—

Ben Max
Discretionary funding

Justin Brannan
Correct, but I just don’t agree. The city should be doing that on its own.

Nicole Gelinas
Speaking of—

Ben Max
Wait, one second, Nicole. He didn’t really finish answering Harry’s question. You listed your first thing, the audits. You were going to list other things, tools. Sorry, Nicole.

Justin Brannan
I think we are in a moment now where, wherever the free market is failing and I think a lot about universal childcare where you’re seeing providers aren’t getting paid enough. Meanwhile, parents are saying it’s too expensive. That is a classic free market failure where the government’s got to step in. There’s a lot of stuff that really would be much better if it was done on the federal level, but that’s not happening anytime soon. We can’t spend the next four years hiding under the bed and waiting for Trump to go away.

We have to keep the laboratory open and keep pushing forward. I think the comptroller’s office, through pension fund investments and financing and creation of affordable housing or financing— I have a plan to finance a universal childcare system. We have to keep dreaming big. We can’t shut down the laboratory for the next four years. Because that means that four years from now, we’re going to be even further behind. I think it’s important that we fight back. Right now, we have an [mayoral] administration that is taking two weeks to sue when Elon Musk is trying to steal money from our account. That is not the urgency that this moment calls for. I want to fight to get more of that independent power, but even if I don’t have that power being in the face of the next mayor and being out in front on these things I think is going to be very important.

Managing The Pension Funds

Nicole Gelinas
In your childcare plan, you proposed to spend $500 million over eight years in investing in providers, investing in property, but is there a tension between pension funds and retirees and taxpayers who need to make an above-market return in trying to make the cost of childcare more efficient and greatly cheaper, as you just alluded to?

Justin Brannan
It’s a great question that I don’t think enough comptroller candidates talk about. You need to work in cooperation with the trustees. If you can’t make the argument that you’re going to get that, at least, state-mandated 7% return, then you can’t do it. Your job is not to play politics with people’s money, but your job is to come up with creative ideas that can, number one, bring back that good return for retirees, but also serve a greater good in the city and invest in the city of New York. I think the secret is that you’ve got to get buy-in from the trustees, and if you can’t, then you can’t do it.

Nicole Gelinas
How can you convince them that childcare is profitable above market in terms of enterprise?

Justin Brannan
It would be a similar return on investment to our real estate investments now. You have to make the case that this is not only a good investment in the workforce and the economy and the future of our city, and keeping working families in the city, but also that you’d still get that return on investment. I think the data shows the benefits that a childcare system would provide for the city.

Nicole Gelinas
In terms of what the parents should contribute, are you more on the side of Scott Stringer, who says parents should contribute what they can, up to 7% of their income, or an Assemblyperson [Zohran] Mamdani, who says “Everybody gets free childcare from six weeks on. You can make $1 million, or you could make $1,000.”

Justin Brannan
I would always rather it not be means-tested. I think that folks are going to choose to send their kids to private childcare or private school, like they do now. I think the same way that we did UPK and 3-K, that should be what we aspire to.

Ben Smith
A lot of questions about the pensions. I don’t know, maybe it's the most consequential side of the job.

Justin Brannan
Yes, it's the top responsibility.

Ben Smith
Which is managing billions of dollars for retirees.

Myles Miller
I wonder two things, [Manhattan Borough President and comptroller candidate] Mark [Levine] comes in as having run a community credit union. My wonder is, what financial experience outside of the budget process do you bring? Secondly, Wall Street management fees: We're paying exorbitant management fees to Wall Street firms, getting into some diversified lanes of investing, but the number one thing is to get a return to pension fund while also balancing how expensive these fees are. So, what’s your pitch to voters on your financial bona fides outside of the finance committee? And then secondly, on these management fees, what’s your plan for that?

Justin Brannan
People voting for comptroller, they’re not expecting to hire a day trader who’s going to hunch over his laptop all day. I think when anyone’s running for comptroller, they start to think back to, "I ran a lemonade stand when I was four years old and we increased sales 10x." I think everyone starts reaching back to what they did that could be relevant experience. For me, my relevant experience, aside from the fact that I worked on Wall Street for a hot minute, is my experience in the [City Council] budget committee. For me, to reach back and say, "I did this, I did that," that’s just a bunch of bullshit. It’s not relevant. Yes, I have experience that I know financial markets from. I have a familiarity, but I’m running on the fact that I know the [city] budget better than anybody else in the race because for the past three-and-a-half years, I’ve served as finance chair. Before that, I served as contracts chair, where I was baptized into the non-profit plight that really needs to be fixed. My relevant experience is the fact that I’ve been the finance chair and that I’ve been fighting like hell against Mayor Adams and I know the games that OMB plays, I know the potential that these agencies have.

And for the fees, I think that Steve Meier, the chief investment officer [and deputy comptroller for Asset Management], there was an article, I think, yesterday in The Financial Times where he spoke about doing a full reassessment, which I think is exactly what we need. After all this chaos from the daily whiplash on tariffs and everything coming out of Washington, we need to sit down on January 1st and figure out where we are at and what we are doing. What I’m also seeing, and I’ve written about this, is that you’ve got red states that are way more aggressive than we’re being in terms of how they leverage the power of their pensions.

Red states are going to their money managers and saying, "Look, you want to manage our money? You need to get the hell out of alternative energy and exclusively invest in oil and gas" and they’re doing it. We need to do the same thing. I think we need to play chess in this moment. We’re not going to gamble with retirees' pension funds, but we’ve got almost a $300 billion pension system. We need to be using our leverage to bring down fees, to negotiate for cheaper fees, for cheaper rates. And we can. We have some of these firms that are managing $60 billion of our money, I’m sure they want to keep that business. We need to be willing to have the courage to go to these firms and say, "Look, if you’re not going to do what we want you to do, we’re going to take our business somewhere else, and there’s 10 other firms that would love to do it." At the same time, we’d be able to get a better return on investment because there’d be lower fees.

Myles Miller
What’s your view about divestment? It’s very popular for people from your party, who want to divest from this and that.

Justin Brannan
So I put out a plan to divest from Tesla. It’s a real plan for how we can draw it down. We have almost, over $1 billion invested over index funds in Tesla. For me, it’s about being willing to pull out that sword and say, if Elon Musk is going to spend his days dreaming up new ways to cut Medicaid or Social Security or the 9/11 Health Fund or veterans benefits, then we’re going to use our leverage and say, "We don’t want to have $1 billion invested in your company." I think you’ve got to be willing to make those moves in this moment, because—

Juan Manuel Benítez
How do you square that with your climate goals?

Justin Brannan
I own an electric vehicle. You don’t have to own a Tesla. I have no problem with people that own Teslas.

Juan Manuel Benítez
What do you have?

Justin Brannan
A Kia. It’s great. I’ve charged it maybe six times. I haven’t bought gas in six months. It’s amazing. I think your investments have to align with your values, but first and foremost, your job is to be a fiduciary for those pension funds and make sure you’re getting that at least 7% return, first and foremost. There’s going to be times where you can make a pitch, say, on clean energy, that these are smart investments not only for our portfolio but for our planet. That’s important. There also has to be times where you’re willing— you have to use the leverage of a $300 billion pension system to try to command the tide a little bit. I don’t know why we’re so afraid to do that when other states with much smaller pensions are doing it for oil and gas, right. On the side of evil, not on the side of good. I think we need to be doing more of that, especially in this moment when we’re dealing with bullies in Washington who only respond to this stuff.

Ben Smith
One of the dynamics in the stock market right now is that after years where you could say, if you were a liberal pension fund manager, I’m investing in ESG, which really meant Tesla, Netflix, and the numbers are going up, and it’s great. The best performing stocks, earlier this year when I checked, were Dollar General, Philip Morris International, and arms dealers. I’m curious, if, tobacco for instance, as is true right now, are the best performing stocks, should we put more money into those things?

Justin Brannan
I don’t think so.

Ben Smith
Even if there’s a cost to city pensioners?

Justin Brannan
I think it’s a conversation you have to have with trustees, and I think you’ve got five different pension funds with five very different risk appetites and ideological viewpoints. I don’t think we should be investing in–

Ben Smith
Do you think pensioners are willing to be a little poorer so that you can use the sword?

Justin Brannan
No, I don’t think that it needs to be a binary decision. I’m not saying we’re going to invest in stuff that I personally believe in, even if we’re going to lose money. We have to be getting that 7% return. If we can’t at least do that, then we’re not going to do it. I don’t think it needs to be a binary choice. With Tesla, for instance, if we want to continue investing in electric vehicles, we can. There’s other companies, there’s other vessels that we can use.

Nicole Gelinas
Would it be a good idea to invest in Chinese companies that are doing very well in electric vehicles and batteries, such as BYD?

Justin Brannan
I would try my best to find an investment that wasn’t touching China, if possible.

Nicole Gelinas
Is that an issue of foreign countries or non-allied countries?

Justin Brannan
I think non-allied countries.

Ben Max
Can you explain this Musk bar? Obviously, he’s been the face of DOGE and you don’t like some of the things he’s led on, but there’s a lot of other CEOs that can act erratically. There’s lots of billionaires who supported Donald Trump, who you obviously don’t like his policies. What are the bars for divesting?

Justin Brannan
I think Elon Musk is unprecedented. I’m not talking about a CEO who’s drunk on his yacht, tweeting stupid shit. I’m talking about a guy who spends his days finding ways to come after New York City. I think it’s a completely new ballgame. I don’t think that there’s anything else like this. It’s not about a CEO who’s a Republican. This is about someone who is actively undermining some of the very things that we rely on and we should not be investing in this company.

Juan Manuel Benítez
Isn’t this a slippery slope? If the bar is Musk or China, is anybody going to be left?

Justin Brannan
I don’t think it’s a slippery slope at all, because I don’t know that there’s other people like Elon Musk who has unbridled power and access and is taking a sledgehammer to our social safety net.

Juan Manuel Benítez
You mentioned China, right?

Justin Brannan
I think you want to avoid it. There’s certain things you want to avoid. I think there’s a difference there. I’m not saying that if the CEO says something stupid, I’m going to come in on Monday morning and say we have to divest from this guy’s company.

Juan Manuel Benítez
You talked about non-allies, so–

Justin Brannan
Yes, I think there’s investments that you want to avoid, but I think, again, it’s got to be in cooperation and partnership with the trustees to make that case. I think these don’t have to be binary choices.

City Debt and Obligations

Nicole Gelinas
Councilman, as you know, we treat pension liabilities and retiree return healthcare liabilities very differently, where City Hall on the top-grade budget puts billions of dollars away into pension funds. Doesn’t do that for their retiree healthcare liabilities. We’ve now got hundred-billion-plus unfunded healthcare liability. Should the city be putting more money into that unfunded liability every year? And, if not, then shouldn’t we think of a way to reduce that healthcare liability, including going to the employees and saying they’ve got to contribute something?

Justin Brannan
That’s a great question. A lot of the conversation around the Medicare Advantage stuff has raised other questions that— I don’t support Medicare Advantage. I signed on to [City Council bill] 1096. I don't think pulling out the rug from under retirees who’ve been retired for decades is the right thing to do. It’s a covenant that the city has with retirees, that the healthcare plan that you signed up with on the day you were hired is the healthcare plan you should have until you’re 150 years old. I think we’re missing the conversation around the cost of hospitalization, the cost of prescription drugs, that is really going to come home to roost. I don’t know that the city is really prepared for that moment. I think it’s a concern because we’re living longer, just as healthcare costs are going through the roof. And I think we’re certainly missing the forest for the trees a little bit on that because the Medicare Advantage thing is one thing, but the fact that we’re thinking about future retirees, such as myself, that’s the conversation we need to have. I think we’re being distracted by today instead of thinking about the future.

Nicole Gelinas
If it’s a covenant, similar to the pension covenant, which it was never considered to be legally by the investors, should not the city be putting $10 billion a year or so toward paying down that unfunded liability? In other words, if we can’t pay it now, how will we pay it in 10 years?

Justin Brannan
I agree. I don’t know. We just don’t have the money to do that right now. That’s a problem. I think you have administrations who are going to continue kicking the can down the road until we have it. I think the office that Council Member Menin created is interesting, The Office of Healthcare Accountability, to really shine a light on what’s going on here and how the city can absolutely, I believe, be negotiating for better rates, which we’re not doing.

Liena Zagare
Speaking of money the city doesn’t have, Zohran Mamdani would like to issue a lot more debt. What is your thinking about and what would guide your approach to issues of debt?

Justin Brannan
I’ve never been the— When colleagues will do the whole free-ice-cream-and-no–homework thing, I’m usually the guy who’s trying to think in my head how much the stuff’s going to cost. I think that we need to keep building in this city. Some of the capital projects that the city does are some of the most tangible investments that people can see. When I’m redoing parks and playgrounds, or schools in my district, those are some of the real legacy projects that you have that people can touch and see that there’s been improvements and that the tax dollars are going to a good place.

I think our debt is manageable now. I think the city— Look, after COVID, the economy has been proven durable and resilient time and time again. Despite what OMB was saying, that the world is going to collapse and the city’s going bankrupt, it was all a bunch of baloney and never true. I think until Donald Trump came along and tried to derail us, we were doing okay. I think now there’s so much uncertainty there that is going to color all the decisions we make because ultimately budgets are in a snapshot in time. So when we shake hands on that budget in July, July 1st, or the end of June, two weeks later, the outlook can change. It’s very much a living document. I think we’re in very uncertain times right now. Which is interesting because the first year of the Adams administration, they were blaming the pandemic residue over finances. The second two years were the migrant crisis, where they said, "Oh, the migrant crisis is going to bankrupt the city, so we don’t have money for anything." And now, Eric is running for reelection, suddenly he found money under the couch cushions and everything is great. It remains to be seen how far that’ll go. I think we’re going to have to make a lot of tough decisions because of that uncertainty.

The Adams Administration, Budget and Personnel Policies, Contracting

Ben Smith
There was a great New York magazine headline, maybe six months ago, that said federal prosecutors finally forced our mayor to do his job. Do you think that this version of the Adams administration is doing a better job?

Justin Brannan
No. I think there’s people that asked me— I remember when some of the first indictments were being announced: "Oh, it must be so hard to do business with City Hall." I was like, no, it’s the same dysfunction that it was before.

Ben Smith
There was a sense that there’s empowered commissioners, like Jessica Tisch, being left alone and doing their jobs. Crime is down. City of Yes got through.

Justin Brannan
What is so frustrating for me in my current role is that the stuff that we’ve been fighting with the administration over for the past three and half years should never have been bones of contention in the first place. The fact that suddenly now he’s willing to respond to the council’s preliminary budget response, and favorably in so many ways, it’s like, we could have been doing this all along. We never want to go in there and have a protracted, bloody fight with this guy. We want to get our priorities funded because we believe those are the priorities of New Yorkers and this is the first time that he’s doing it. I think it’s been nuts the way that he’ll cut $60 million from the Parks Department and then he’ll put $60 million back, and he wants a ticker tape parade as if that’s new money. All he’s doing is putting back money that he’s already owed us. A lot of these agencies are skeletal on the staffing level, and a lot of that has to do with the dysfunction in government.

Ben Max
I’m glad you brought that up because I wanted to ask you about that, related to the budget. You and other members of the Council have been talking about this since they instituted some of their initial savings programs and hiring freezes, or two-out one-in, and all sorts of things like that. The personnel policies and challenges, hiring and retaining employees, coming out of COVID…As much as you’ve taken credit and some people will give you credit for beating back some of the things that the administration wanted to do, it doesn’t seem the Council’s been that successful in pushing back on the personnel policies on what you have all wanted to see, of beefing up the hiring at agencies. Talk about the success and failure there from your perspective on what you said about the deficiencies at agencies related to personnel. A lot of this money’s in the budget, even though some of the staffing levels have been slashed, but the people are not being retained and hired.

Justin Brannan
We learned a lot from the way that OMB plays poker. The way that they starve some of these agencies in order to make an excuse for saving money. They’ll say, "X agency doesn’t have a hiring freeze,” but if it takes you six months to onboard for a job, you’re probably not going to take that job. Then, they can say, "We couldn’t fill that job so we can pull that one down." You do that over and over and over again, it gets compounded. Now, we’re realizing that a lot of these agencies, the reason why things aren’t working, it’s not because they don’t have the funding, it's because they don’t have the staffing. And we’ve not been successful on that because OMB has such a grip over this administration that not until this budget did they actually start spending money.

The last budget, I negotiated a lot of that with— I would say, "Look, we’re asking you to fund the arts and cultural institutions to the tune of" whatever it was, whatever we were asking them to chip in at the time. "This is popular. The mayor is going to look good if you fund this. We’re not looking for credit. You have a bigger megaphone than we do. When this gets announced, the mayor will get all the credit for this thing." And OMB just doesn’t listen to that. They don’t care. And maybe it’s good that they don’t have a political bone in their body, but they also then make cuts that don’t make any sense where you’re cutting $4 million for HIV and AIDS outreach programs. $4 million? That’s the savings for you? Which is fucking crazy.

On the staffing stuff, we have not been successful because they play so many games where they say, "You don’t have a hiring freeze anymore. We’re hiring up. We told agencies they can hire." But then, when the commissioner is no longer testifying and they call you after the hearing and they give you the real story, they say, "Look, OMB is telling you that we can hire people, but it’s impossible to get approval for the [budget] lines.”

Contracting

Nicole Gelinas
The migrant crisis has cost the city at least $7.5 billion in its own resources. The comptroller’s job with the migrant contracts is, of course, to register contracts. Our colleague Akash, who unfortunately couldn’t be here today, had a question: Would you like to put contract texts online, without people having to FOIL for it, so we could look at all registered city contacts and get a pdf?

Justin Brannan
Absolutely. Yes. I want to create very simple dashboards, so we can really empower the taxpayers to understand how this stuff works — why some of these companies like DocGo get a $450 million check written so easily, while so many of our non-profits and vendors are owed millions of dollars. I think sunlight is the best disinfectant there, and absolutely..

Nicole Gelinas
As you know, many of these contracts are emergency contracts.

Justin Brannan
Yes.

Nicole Gelinas
Do you think the comptroller has a role in saying an emergency cannot be three-and-a-half years long? How would you challenge that?

Justin Brannan
Yes, I’ve said a similar thing. You can’t have an emergency that lasts for years. It’s no longer an emergency. When the dust and the fog of an emergency dissipates, these are still taxpayer dollars that still need to be accounted for down to the last payment. What concerns me is that it seems that the robust oversight for contracts is usually reserved for non-profits that are waiting to get a $50,000 check while DocGo is getting $450 million checks. I’ve got nonprofits that are owed millions of dollars for work they did in the past that is being held up because there’s a question about a $50 expenditure. It’s completely broken. I think we’ve done a good job at elevating this problem so much so that there was a mayoral forum, I think, just on procurement reform. It’s got to get fixed. The comptroller’s role there is basically to make sure that those contracts are on your desk for as short amount of time as possible.

Ben Smith
There’s a view in that; that basically, the city, but also the government at large, is too worried about corruption. That there’s so much oversight aimed at stopping corruption. You actually have very little corruption, but the cost of the bureaucracy isn’t worth it and that better functioning institutions, including lots of private businesses, just tolerate a certain level of corruption. Do you think that’s true? Do you think there’s not enough corruption?

Justin Brannan
[Laughter] I’m not going to call for more corruption today. No, I think a lot of it is compounded. It’s rules on top of rules on top of rules on top of rules. It’s like our property tax system. You keep not fixing it, and you keep putting bandaids on it that now it’s this monster that you can’t untangle. It’s not hyperbole to say that a company like DocGo, with seemingly no oversight, was written a check for almost $500 million while Catholic Charities is owed $30 million for work that they did 10 years ago. It’s completely insane. I think that’s a choice. It’s a policy choice to– The mayor. I don’t know if it was six months or a year into his first year, the end of the first year he cleared out $6 billion of backlog payments. So it shows that you can do it. It’s not a cash flow problem. The money is just sitting there, but it’s owed to non-profits that have done this amazing work for the city and it’s gotten so bad that now people don’t want to do business with the city. They don’t want— I have non-profits in my district that I fund, that I give five or ten thousand dollars to, that don’t even want it because it’s not worth it. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze. What are we saying here?

Liena Zagare
Do you think the city’s outsourcing too much to nonprofits? Should some of that be in-house?

Justin Brannan
I wouldn’t say no, because the city is always going to have a capacity issue. There’s only so much the city itself can do. I think about the people who rely on these nonprofits. A lot of them do lifesaving work. They don’t care when they walk through the door if it says Department of whatever, or the local nonprofit. They just want services. I think we do too much outsourcing, say at DOE with IT vendors, that sort of thing, that’s where we’re wasting money. We’re not hemorrhaging money on non-profits. We’re not paying them. We’re not really hemorrhaging money.

Threats to New York City, Mayoral Race

Juan Manuel Benítez
Councilman, what do you think is going to be the biggest threat for New York City in the next four years?

Justin Brannan
Washington. Vendetta. The vendetta from Donald Trump. We have to—

Juan Manuel Benítez
Sorry, if that’s the case, having watched the [mayoral] debate last night, do you think that the fact that the comptroller normally is oversight of the mayor, and this is some contentious relationship, do you think that dynamic is going to be secondary in the next four years because New York City is going to have to present a united front? If so, who do you think would be the best partner? Who do you think won’t be a good partner for you to fight Washington?

Justin Brannan
I haven’t endorsed in the mayor’s race. I don’t know if I’m going to. I’m torn on should someone running for a comptroller pick a mayor because ultimately you have to be an independent watchdog, whether it’s your best friend or not. I would much rather have a partner as a mayor and someone that we could work together to really fight the threat of Washington, which I would hope would be more than the threat of City Hall versus the comptroller. I think part of that question is based on what we’re dealing with now, where we have a mayor who’s afraid to stand up to Washington and so much of the ire is directed on him being silent when this stuff is happening. If we had a mayor-- If Eric Adams was standing up to Donald Trump and telling him to stay the hell out of New York City, we wouldn’t be going after him. We’re going after him because he’s complicit and silent and doesn’t say anything when New Yorkers so desperately want a leader who will stand up to Donald Trump. I think the next mayor, whoever they are, will identify that early on, that that is a bigger threat than anything else.

Juan Manuel Benítez
As you know, the former governor, Cuomo, is being investigated by the Justice Department. Do you think that’s also going to compromise him, and that way he will be disqualified due to what you said?

Justin Brannan
I don’t think so. I think we’ve seen how DOJ has been weaponized. When I think about my dealings with Mayor Adams, on budget items, I think any of the people running for mayor would be better because they would identify that if there are popular programs that New Yorkers rely on, these programs should be funded and expanded. My biggest takeaway from dealing with Eric Adams the past three-and-a-half years is an allergy to understanding, or not wanting to understand it. Someone very early on got in his head and said— confused him between fiscal austerity and fiscal responsibility, but he thinks if he’s cutting the library funding that’s going to somehow bring up our bond rating, the two things have nothing to do with each other.

Ben Max
He probably thinks that by getting you to focus on the library funding, all the free-spending Council members are not going to—

Justin Brannan
That doesn’t work, right? I think a lot of people will point to the Bloomberg budget dance, and I was out there too with the signs that said, "Bloomberg is closing our firehouses." But no one actually thought he was going to do that. With this administration, if we don’t suit up and fight with them, they will cut this stuff.

Ben Max
On Cuomo, you said in your PIX debate, you have concerns, but you didn’t want to elaborate. You’re talking very frank, tough talk here. What are these concerns? He’s the frontrunner, could be the next mayor. You’d be the comptroller…

Justin Brannan
Sure. I think there’s relationship concerns. Something you learn very quickly as a city elected official is how much power Albany has over the city. Having those relationships at Albany to get things done— Hard for me to imagine Cuomo going up to Tin Cup Day in Albany and asking Albany for money for the city, but he’ll have to if he's the mayor. I think so much of this business is relationships. That will either be an obstacle or an opportunity to get things done. I think that’s a problem.

Juan Manuel Benítez
We’re trying so hard in here, but are you sure you’re not going to give us a different answer when we turn off the microphone?

Justin Brannan
No! [Laughs] That's my answer.

Being Comptroller, Tax Rates

Harry Siegel
You’re running for comptroller. You’ve been budget chair. You’ve talked a lot about Adams and his budget “bullshit,” in effect. What would you have done, had you been comptroller, to help with this process and in that position that might give people looking at this [transcript] a sense of how you’d handle the job?

Justin Brannan
I think giving people the data and the numbers so it can back up these arguments that— And I think [Comptroller] Brad [Lander] has done a good job of that. When Brad puts out reports and forecasts, my colleagues listen, and it often informs our decisions or at least gives us the numbers we need, In addition to IBO and others. I would say in these situations, knowledge is power and informing people of what’s going on in these agencies and how their money is being spent or not spent is very important. I think auditing agencies and soliciting feedback from regular New Yorkers about which agencies they think are working. The CBC survey that they did, that should be something that the comptroller’s office does twice a year, to really get an idea of what real New Yorkers are feeling and if they think their city is working and functioning properly. I think we know what the answer would be and until we have people feeling better about their city, we have to keep fighting. We have to keep working at it.

Nicole Gelinas
With your concern about Cuomo, with Assemblyman Mamdani, are you concerned at all about the erosion of the tax base, that he proposes $9 billion in higher state income taxes that would fall on the city's taxpayers. The state comptroller sometimes weighs in on these issues of higher taxes. Is that worrisome to you?

Justin Brannan
I think it is crazy how Albany has twisted themselves into a pretzel to do everything but suggest that we should tax more of the super-rich.

Nicole Gelinas
You think the super-rich should be paying more taxes?

Justin Brannan
Absolutely. I don’t know why that is not the thing that— We’re doing everything but that.

Nicole Gelinas
It seems you’re not concerned–

Justin Brannan
No, I’m not, because I don’t believe that the headlines, that billionaires are fleeing the city is just not true. We need billionaires because I need their tax dollars to fund our firehouses and our public schools, but if we continue losing working families, that’s a bigger problem. If we continue losing working people, it’s worse for the economy than losing a couple of billionaires. I don’t buy that.

Nicole Gelinas
You could potentially see yourself supporting Mamdani as he goes to Albany and asks for these tax increases?

Justin Brannan
If it’s tax increases on the super wealthy, yes. Tax increases on middle class, working class. No.

Nicole Gelinas
What about corporations?

Justin Brannan
Yes. Absolutely.

Differentiation with Top Competition

Juan Manuel Benítez
Councilman, you’re running for an office very few New Yorkers know about, even though it’s a very important one. The top leaders of the Democratic primary right now in this race are two middle-aged white men. Many voters will be wondering—

Justin Brannan
Am I middle-aged already?

Ben Smith
That sucks.

Justin Brannan
Fuck.

Juan Manuel Benítez
Many voters might be wondering who should they vote for. Sometimes this might come down to who they like the best because of some particular thing, personal life. Can you give us something so voters can have a better idea of what differentiates you from Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, even if it’s a personal tip or something about your biography?

Justin Brannan
I am very much an unconventional candidate. I learned three chords at McKinley Junior High School, a public school. Those three chords afforded me a career as a touring musician. I toured the world for 10 years in a punk rock band, slept on a lot of hard floors, went to 50 different countries. Never in a million years did I think I’d get into politics. I got into doing some labor organizing and ended up working for my predecessor, Councilmember Vinnie Gentile, where I learned the ropes. And I fell in love with local government because the pace of local government was something that I could get with.

For me, growing up, what was going on in Washington was a bunch of white guys, old white guys with white hair, making decisions that just didn’t affect my life. I had to pay the rent, I had to pay my beeper bill, and that was all I cared about. Then I discovered local politics, and I was like, "OK, this is awesome. Someone can walk into the office, you undo their knot, send them on their way, you make them believe in the system again." That was magic. Putting up with all the bullshit in politics is just to get to that place where it feels good to help somebody.

I’ve always been independent. The Brooklyn Democratic Party came after me when I was in a general election. I’m not— I don’t do fealty. I’m unbought and unbossed. That’s always been how I am. I haven’t prepared to be a politician my entire life, so I made plenty of mistakes as a stupid teenager. But it makes me a real person who’s always going to try to tell it like it is, that's always going to be honest with people. If I can help you, I will. If I can’t, I’m going to tell you that I can’t. I think in this moment, New Yorkers want some honesty and some truth, and they want fire. They want someone who’s going to do more than write a strongly worded letter, who’s actually going to fight and show them that they’re fighting. In this moment, all New Yorkers should be demanding so much more of their politicians, to really stand in that breach between the federal government and our most vulnerable. That is our responsibility. The privilege of my power is for that moment. It’s not to ask people to do more. It’s that elected officials should be doing more because that’s what you elected us to do.

Juan Manuel Benítez
You owned a beeper, so respectfully, yes, you’re middle-aged.

Immigration Enforcement

Harry Siegel
Closing question here about standing in that breach. There’ve been fairly massive ICE escalations in terms of the sorts of arrests they’re doing in New York City — in courthouses at check-ins and elsewhere — just in the last week. This is building. I can only imagine by the time we get to next year, where things might be at. Is there a role for a comptroller to play there at all?

Justin Brannan
That’s a good question. Certainly, there’s a role for a comptroller to play there by showing up and speaking out and holding the mayor accountable to our sanctuary city policies, or at least not allowing a mayor to stay silent in moments like that. I think you could be a real check on the mayor in those situations. Again, it’s hard to imagine because we’re only thinking about our current mayor and how silent and complicit he's been. I think January 1, the next comptroller has to get in there and do a full assessment of all of our investments, of all the different levers of power that the comptroller’s office has, to make sure we’re exhausting every lever of power there because we’re going to need it.

Rank The Mayors, Rank The Comptrollers, More on Differentiation

Ben Smith
Final question. Rank the mayors of your lifetime.

Justin Brannan
Fiorello LaGuardia is number one, but he’s before my lifetime. I was born in ‘78, so I guess Koch. Dinkins? No. Dinkins, Koch, De Blasio, Bloomberg.

Ben Smith
Thanks for answering the questions straightforwardly.

Harry Siegel
Do you want rank the comptrollers, too, as best you remember?

Justin Brannan
Abe Beame. He’s a Brooklyn guy. Bill Thompson was great. John Liu was great. I think Scott and Brad have done a good job. Look, when I hear trustees, and I've met with a lot of trustees, who are not ideologically aligned with Brad Lander and they say that Brad has done a good job, that’s about as good a testimony as he can get.

Ben Max
Actually, just real quick, you have made it very clear that you think the biggest difference between you and Mark Levine is you’ve stood up to Eric Adams, he hasn’t. Is there any other one thing you’d name that’s the biggest difference between the two of you? Because you seem to agree on a lot.

Justin Brannan
I think our approach is just totally different. I’m a southern Brooklyn guy, and he’s a Manhattan guy, and getting into politics for me was not the plan. I think that comes with a certain worldview and what you’re willing to do and fearlessness that you’re willing to bring to a job. Where I’ve worked in the private sector, I’m happy to go back to delivering pizzas if that’s where the voters send me. I’m not just looking to climb the ladder. Would not be running for comptroller if I wasn’t chair of the finance committee. I just wouldn’t have any interest in it.

I think it’s the approach, and I think if past is prologue you need a fighter in this moment. Not someone who’s going to be passive. Someone who’s going to work hard to demystify our budget, demystify how the city works, and how your tax dollars get spent. So much of that is educational, I think it’s important and empowering. I think right now, this moment calls for a fighter, someone who’s willing to fight back.

Myles Miller
One last thing, sorry. One truly last thing. You guys spent some time together in the City Council. Not everybody’s friends. What is it that you guys don’t see eye to eye on?

Justin Brannan
I don’t know. I don’t know enough about him to say–

Nicole Gelinas
Why do you rank Dinkins higher than de Blasio when de Blasio got two terms?

Justin Brannan
I think what Dinkins’ election meant for the city was historic. So that’s why.

Ben Smith
Wonderful. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Appreciate your answering all the questions. Not everybody does.

Harry Siegel
We hit a Kojak level of “one last question” here.

Justin Brannan
I didn't think not answering was an option.

Ben Smith
Oh yes. You obviously haven’t been in this business long enough.