Every four years, New York City voters weigh in on far more than who sits in City Hall. Three other sets of citywide and borough-level offices shape how the city is audited, how resident complaints get investigated, and how neighborhood infrastructure competes for funding in the capital budget. If you’ve ever looked at a sample ballot and wondered what the Comptroller, Public Advocate, or your Borough President actually does on a Tuesday afternoon, this is your explainer.
The NYC Comptroller: The City’s Fiscal Watchdog
The New York City Comptroller is the city’s chief financial officer and auditor — an independently elected position that operates outside the mayor’s chain of command. That independence is the point: the Comptroller is designed to check City Hall’s spending, contracts, and financial practices without needing the mayor’s permission to do so. The office’s powers are codified in Chapter 5 of the New York City Charter.
Auditing City Agencies
The Comptroller is required by the Charter to audit every city agency at least once every four years. In practice, the office often audits high-priority agencies more frequently — and on a demand basis when complaints or fiscal irregularities surface. Audit findings are public records. The office posts them online, along with agency response letters, making this one of the most accessible transparency functions in city government.
Reviewing City Contracts
Before any city contract becomes legally effective, the Bureau of Contract Administration reviews it. The Comptroller has up to 30 calendar days to verify that: (1) appropriated funds exist to cover the payments, (2) the contracting agency followed proper procurement rules, and (3) the award process was free from corruption. The office can register the contract, reject it, or flag it for further review. This review power applies to contracts across every city agency — making the Comptroller a significant brake on how hundreds of millions of dollars flow to outside vendors each year.
Managing Pension Assets
The Comptroller serves as investment advisor to and custodian of assets for the city’s five public pension funds. These funds collectively cover more than 700,000 current and former city employees, including teachers, police officers, sanitation workers, and firefighters. The office oversees asset allocation strategy, investment manager selection, and shareholder advocacy on behalf of those beneficiaries — a role with enormous long-term consequences for working New Yorkers.
Claims and Financial Standards
The Comptroller holds statutory authority to settle and adjust claims made against the city — including personal injury cases, contract disputes, and property damage claims. The office also prescribes accounting methods and financial standards that all city agencies must follow, and publishes regular economic analyses and cost-benefit reviews of major city purchases and capital projects.
Mark Levine, the 52nd Comptroller of the City of New York, took office on January 1, 2026. The office can be tracked at comptroller.nyc.gov.
The NYC Public Advocate: The People’s Ombudsman
The Public Advocate is perhaps the most misunderstood elected office in New York City government. It sits in a unique constitutional position: part legislative, part executive watchdog — but without a majority vote in either branch. The office’s mandate is defined in Section 24 of the NYC Charter, and it has two distinct functions: ombudsman for city government and non-voting member of the City Council.
Investigating Complaints About City Services
The Public Advocate is the designated entry point for residents who have been failed by city agencies. If a 311 complaint goes unanswered for months, if a city housing office has stopped responding to repair requests, or if residents across multiple boroughs are experiencing the same systematic problem with a city service, the Public Advocate’s office has statutory authority to investigate.
Specifically, the Charter directs the Public Advocate to: monitor how city agencies handle public information and service complaints; review recurring complaints of a multi-borough or citywide nature; receive individual complaints and investigate those not resolved at the agency level; and issue public reports to the City Council and mayor when agencies fail to act on recommendations within a reasonable time. That last step — the public report — is the office’s primary enforcement lever. The Public Advocate cannot compel an agency to act, but a formal public report creates political and reputational pressure to do so.
Legislative Role
The Public Advocate is a non-voting member of the New York City Council. The officeholder may attend Council sessions, introduce legislation, and co-sponsor bills — but does not vote on any measure before the Council. In practice, this means the Public Advocate can champion legislation citywide without being limited to a single Council district’s constituent concerns. It is a platform without a gavel.
Board Appointments and Succession
The Public Advocate appoints one member of the NYC Planning Commission and serves alongside the Comptroller on the committee that selects the director of the Independent Budget Office. The office also chairs the Commission on Public Information and Communication under Charter Section 1061.
Crucially, the Public Advocate is first in the line of succession to the mayoralty. If the sitting mayor is unable to serve, the Public Advocate becomes acting mayor.
Jumaane D. Williams was re-inaugurated as Public Advocate in January 2026. The office operates at advocate.nyc.gov.
The Five Borough Presidents: Local Planning Voices
New York City has five boroughs — Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island — and each has an independently elected Borough President. These offices once wielded enormous power through the Board of Estimate, which controlled the city’s budget alongside the mayor and City Council. In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Board of Estimate in Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris, ruling that it violated the one-person-one-vote principle. Borough Presidents were stripped of binding budgetary authority. What remained is a set of planning, advisory, and community coordination functions — still meaningful, but fundamentally different from the pre-1990 era.
Land Use Review
Borough Presidents play a mandatory role in the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), the process by which zoning changes, large developments, and major capital projects receive public scrutiny. When a land use application enters ULURP, the relevant Borough President holds a public hearing and issues a formal recommendation to the City Planning Commission. That recommendation is advisory — not binding — but it carries political weight with both the Planning Commission and the City Council members who ultimately vote on most land use actions.
Capital Budget Recommendations
Each Borough President maintains a budget office and submits capital budget recommendations to the mayor for infrastructure projects within their borough. These recommendations compete for space in the city’s capital plan — the multi-year spending blueprint that funds school construction, park improvements, road resurfacing, and major facility upgrades. Borough Presidents can also introduce legislation in the City Council through a sponsoring Council member, and can convene public hearings on any matter affecting their borough.
Community Boards
Borough Presidents appoint the members of community boards — the 59 neighborhood advisory bodies that review land use applications and provide feedback on city services. Community board members serve two-year terms without pay. While community boards are purely advisory, they are often the first formal public hearing point for development projects, and their recommendations feed into the ULURP process. Residents who want to influence how their neighborhood grows often start by attending community board meetings.
Topographical Bureau and Planning Office
The Charter requires each Borough President to maintain a topographical bureau, directed by a licensed professional engineer, which monitors capital project construction within the borough. The Borough President’s planning office also provides technical assistance to community boards reviewing environmental assessments and land use applications — giving smaller community boards access to planning expertise they couldn’t otherwise afford.
Current Borough Presidents
As of 2026, the five Borough Presidents are:
- The Bronx: Vanessa L. Gibson
- Brooklyn: Antonio Reynoso
- Manhattan: Brad Hoylman-Sigal
- Queens: Donovan Richards
- Staten Island: Vito Fossella
How These Offices Relate to Each Other — and to City Hall
The Comptroller, Public Advocate, and Borough Presidents form a layer of city government that checks the mayor’s executive branch without being part of it. The Comptroller audits the mayor’s agencies and reviews contracts the mayor’s agencies sign. The Public Advocate investigates complaints about the mayor’s agencies and can issue public reports against them. Borough Presidents weigh in on land use decisions that the mayor’s Department of City Planning administers. None of these offices can fire an agency commissioner or veto a mayoral decision — but each creates friction, transparency, and public accountability that shapes how the executive branch behaves.
Voters interested in how their city is being run should pay attention to all five Borough President races, the Comptroller, and the Public Advocate — not just the mayor’s race. These offices determine who is watching the city’s money, who is hearing residents’ grievances, and who is shaping the neighborhoods where New Yorkers actually live.
The next citywide election cycle will test who holds these seats. Residents who want to participate should make sure they’re registered and understand their options under ranked-choice voting, which applies to Democratic and Republican primaries for these offices. For information on early voting, polling sites, and mail ballots, see our NYC polling site and early voting guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the NYC Comptroller actually do?
The NYC Comptroller audits city agencies, reviews city contracts before they take effect, oversees the city’s five public pension funds, and settles claims made against the city. The Comptroller operates independently of the mayor and serves a four-year term.
What is the NYC Public Advocate’s job?
The Public Advocate is the city’s official ombudsman — an independently elected official who investigates resident complaints about city agencies, introduces legislation in the City Council as a non-voting member, and serves as first in the line of succession to the mayor. The office has no vote in the City Council and cannot compel agency action, but can issue public reports.
What power do NYC Borough Presidents actually have?
Borough Presidents advise on land use through the ULURP process, submit capital budget recommendations to the mayor, appoint community board members, and maintain planning and engineering offices that support their borough. Since 1990, they do not hold binding vote power over the city budget. Their role is primarily advisory, advocacy-focused, and planning-oriented.
Is the NYC Comptroller more powerful than the Borough Presidents?
In terms of formal statutory authority, yes. The Comptroller holds citywide binding powers: contract registration, audit authority over all agencies, and custody of the city’s five public pension funds covering more than 700,000 current and former employees. Borough Presidents’ powers are largely advisory, though their land use recommendations and budget advocacy carry significant political weight at the neighborhood level.
How are the NYC Comptroller, Public Advocate, and Borough Presidents elected?
All are elected in citywide or borough-wide primaries and general elections on four-year cycles. Democratic and Republican primaries for these offices use ranked-choice voting. Voters rank up to five candidates in order of preference.
Who is the current NYC Comptroller?
Mark Levine is the 52nd Comptroller of the City of New York, having taken office on January 1, 2026.
Who is the current NYC Public Advocate?
Jumaane D. Williams is the current Public Advocate, re-inaugurated in January 2026.
