NEW YORK—Comptroller-elect Scott Stringer announced his transition team Monday as he prepares to take over the reins from Comptroller John Liu on Jan. 1.
Stringer appointed Ana Oliveira, president of the New York Women’s Foundation, and Robert Kasdin, senior executive vice president of Columbia University, as his co-chairs for the transition team.
The remaining 15 members of Stringer’s transition team come from diverse fields including finance, labor, business, and education. The team includes notable names like Kathryn Wylde, president of Partnership for New York City, and Benjamin Jealous, former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Stringer said he and his team will begin work on creating a diverse team to carry out his campaign promises. Stringer promised to create the Sandy Audit Bureau to keep tabs on the billions in federal aid coming into the city and to hire a chief diversity officer to ensure diversity in city ranks.
Stringer and his team will deal with rising pension costs, which have gone from $2.3 billion in 2004 to over $8 billion in 2013. Merging the city’s five pension funds was an idea floated during the campaign, mostly by his Democratic primary opponent Eliot Spitzer, as a way to save money. Stringer did not commit to the idea on Monday.
“That is a discussion I am going to have with the 58 trustees of the 5 funds,” Stringer said. “It makes a lot of sense to have those discussions. I do think we need pension consolidation, but again, as comptroller, I can’t walk into my first meeting and put my fist down and say, ‘We will have consolidation.’ This work has to be part of sitting down with the trustees and building those relationships.”
As a cost-saving measure, Stringer intends to grow in-house investment staff to reduce by $500 million fees now spent on outside consulting.
