Rename NYC's "Comptroller" to "Chief Financial Officer"
It's time to have a widely understandable title for one of the city's principal offices // End comptroller inscrutability
These remarks were delivered to the New York City Charter Revision Commission on the evening of June 27, 2024.
Testimony of Daniel Golliher, Founder, Maximum New York
To: The New York City Charter Revision Commission
Thursday, June 27, 2024
Good evening. I am Daniel Golliher, founder of the civics school Maximum New York (MNY). My students include city and state employees, software engineers, lawyers, and a widely variable cross-section of New York City.
It’s from this perspective teaching government and law, as well as my own participation in these fields, that I offer this suggestion to the Commission:
Change the title of the city’s Comptroller to the Chief Financial Officer, or CFO.
While this suggested change might seem trivial to some, it would serve the interests of a free and democratic electorate as well as the city. It also fits the spirit of the “modernization” section of this commission's preliminary report. Why?
Because almost no New York City resident or voter knows what “Comptroller” means; it is an archaic term.
While they do not understand the manifold audit and control functions the office performs, this is understandable, and arguably not their job. The actual problem is that they do not even vaguely understand what that role does, which means they can’t do their job of effective voting, among other things. Multiple TV shows rely on the oddly specific fact of comptroller inscrutability for jokes; my own personal media consumption has highlighted this in season two of NBC’s Superstore and season three of HBO’s Sex and the City.1
(I will note that, even as I type this testimony, Google Docs underlines the word “comptroller” as a misspelling, and suggests the alternative of “controller,” which appears in older versions of the charter of 1898 through 1901.)2
Comptroller inscrutability means that the general public cannot possibly vote for the office in anything resembling good faith. This is quite distinct from the mayoral race: while citizens will not know the full job description of the mayor, they directionally understand that the mayor operates as an executive, and is “in charge of getting things done.” If the Comptroller were the CFO, citizens would directionally understand that the office was in charge of overseeing the city’s money, and that itself is already a huge leap in understanding.
Changing the name of the Comptroller to Chief Financial Officer serves the interest of voter education and electoral legitimacy, and would do more for these causes than millions spent in any kind of broader citizen education effort. It is, in fact, how those in the civic sphere already explain what the Comptroller does: they say it’s “New York City’s Chief Financial Officer,” and this includes the Comptroller’s website itself.3
On the candidate side of the equation, the title “Chief Financial Officer of New York City” is a much more compelling title, and would change the rhetorical and competitive landscape of Comptroller elections. People would be more inclined to vote for the office on the basis of sound financial experience and competency in money management, and prospective candidates in the worlds of accounting, banking, and finance would be more compelled to run.
This suggestion is not without precedent. In 1993, in the wake of the Board of Estimate’s dissolution, the City Council passed Local Law 19, which changed the name of the President of the City Council to the Public Advocate.4 Legislative testimony in favor of this law highlighted the confusing nature of the Council President’s title, and the need to clarify its role relative to the Speaker of the Council.
Although there are obvious considerations when changing the name of a principal city office in the law, including the many references to it in state law, I urge the Commission to study this potential charter change as expeditiously as possible, with an eye to implementing it in time for the city’s 2025 election. Thank you for your consideration.
Superstore, S2E8, “Election Day”
Sex and the City, S3E2, “Politically Erect”
The proposed Charter of the City of New York as prepared by the Charter Revision Commission appointed by the Governor in 1900 and submitted to the Legislature in 1901; Chapter VI, Title 1 “The Controller”
See the website here (emphasis added): “Comptroller Brad Lander is New York City’s Chief Financial Officer. An independently elected official, he safeguards the City’s fiscal health, roots out waste, fraud and abuse in local government, and ensures that municipal agencies serve the needs of all New Yorkers.”
Local Law 19 of 1993, “To amend the New York City charter in relation to changing the title of the president of the council to the public advocate.”
Amen!
I agree that “Comptroller” is an obscure name and should be done away with! That said, I do wonder if changing it to CFO would be confusing with respect to the Commissioner of the Finance Department? Could it even be that the Commissioner of the Finance Department has more claim to effectively being the CFO than the Comptroller does? What if the Comptroller was renamed to “City Auditor” (a title used in many cities around the country), rather than CFO, to avoid this confusion? Would love to hear your thoughts!