The Comptroller, considered the city’s second most powerful official, is charged with the following duties: (a) regularly auditing city agencies and the city’s financial transactions; (b) managing the city’s $90 billion Public Pension Funds; (c) enforcing the law that requires city contractors to pay no less than the prevailing wage to their employees; (d) registering city contracts (with the power to reject them due to corruption); and (e) reviewing the annual city budget and issuing an annual report on the city’s fiscal health.

Two candidates are running in the Democratic primary to succeed Alan Hevesi, who is running for Mayor. Both are friends to the community and both had almost identical, positive responses to the Pride Agenda’s candidate questionnaire.
Herb Berman

Herb Berman has represented Southern Brooklyn on the City Council since 1975, and has been Chair of the Council’s powerful Finance Committee since 1990. He played a critical role in the city appropriating $3 million towards the renovation of the LGBT Community Services Center in 2000 and 2001. He voted for the gay rights law in 1986,which was highly unpopular in the district he represented. In 1998, he sponsored the Clinic Access Bill, making it a crime to prevent access to reproductive healthcare services, and allowing victims harmed by misconduct to seek compensation. Currently, he is a prime sponsor of a resolution of support for New York State’s “Dignity for All Students Act,” a key bill for the Pride Agenda.

Mr. Berman has been endorsed by the Stonewall Democratic Club, State Senator Tom
Duane, and Councilmember Margarita Lopez.
   
Bill Thompson Bill Thompson served on the New York City Board of Education from 1994 to 2001, including five years as its chair. He also served for 10 years as Brooklyn’s Deputy Borough President. As President of the Board of Education, he worked to increase accountability, for tougher standards, to improve reading scores, end “social promotions,” and open school finances to the public. On the Board, he supported the Dignity for All Students Act and worked to deny special access by the Boy Scouts to school facilities and contracts.

Mr. Thompson has been endorsed by Gay & Lesbian Independent Democrats, Lambda
Independent Democrats of Brooklyn, the Out People of Color Political Action Club, the Gay and Lesbian Democratic Club of Queens, and Assemblymember Deborah Glick.
   
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