Some people write on their hands, put a note on their fridge, or scream into their cellular phone to remind them to pay the power bill. Comptroller John Liu has New York City's second-most popular tabloid to do the reminding, and yesterday the Post broke a story that the embattled presumptive mayoral candidate owed ConEd $500 and the Tax Department $943; both invoices were left over from his campaign for the Comptroller's office. But reached at his 45th-birthday party/fundraiser last night, Liu said he was grateful for the heads up. "I want to thank The Post for that story," he told the paper. "If, in fact, we do owe that amount, we'll pay it right away." more ›

City Comptroller John Liu is weathering a campaign finance scandal that has resulted in a federal investigation and the arrest of a fund-raiser, plus near-daily articles about the scandal and how his mayoral aspirations are dunzo. So yesterday, Chinese-American leaders held a "hastily convened news conference" to, as the NY Times reports, to "[compare] the federal inquiry into his campaign fund-raising to what has been called a hazing campaign before the death of Pvt. Danny Chen." Yes, they went there. more ›

The hits keep coming for Comptroller John Liu. His approval ratings are plummeting, the investigations into his campaign finances continue (and continue to look worse) and now he is said to be on "a paranoia-fueled snitch hunt" to the point that he reportedly tore down cubicle walls last week to better prevent his underlings from talking to reporters. Of course, he fervently denies it. more ›

Even though he's continuing to point out where the city may be overspending or losing money, the recent news that his campaign finances are being investigated by the feds is not helping City Comptroller John Liu. A recent poll from Quinnipiac shows his approval ratings from fallen from 57% in May to 38% now. more ›

Food prices keep going up, sure, but some of this is absurd! In its second audit this month related to food in the city, the Comptroller's office has called out the Department of Education for not being careful with its food contracts—with costly results [PDF]. Like, for instance, with the distributor who charged the DOE the same amount to deliver cases of "Beef - Gyro Strip" as it did to deliver cheaper and lighter cases of "Eggplant, breaded." And it goes on. After the audit, the Comptroller's office went and smacked down a Department of Education contract that inexplicably jumped $20 million dollars in a year! more ›

Just because John Liu has some campaign cash problems doesn't mean he doesn't have a job to do. Just ask the Parks Department, which just received a scathing audit from the Comptroller's office regarding its handling of concessions [PDF]. Though Parks strongly disagrees with the audit's findings, Liu and co. say that in the past three years the Department has left roughly $8.8 million in additional revenues on the table due to poor planning and mismanagement. The Parks Department's biggest mess-up over the years? Clearly the late Tavern on the Green. more ›

Ah, now that the federal authorities are investigating some questionable donations made to his mayoral campaign, NYC Comptroller John Liu has started to return some of those possibly shady funds. A spokesman for Liu told the NY Times that about $20,000 has been refunded; the Times adds, "Much of that has been sent back to people connected to companies highlighted in an investigation by The New York Times in October into Mr. Liu’s campaign disclosure reports. The inquiry found that some people listed as his campaign donors insisted that they had never given money." more ›

Even though the federal authorities are investigating his campaign finances, even though a fund raiser was arrested, and even though his political future is up in the air, NYC Comptroller John Liu still thinks he's got a shot at being mayor in 2013. He reportedly told a group of Chinese supporters, "I want to run for the highest office in New York City... Of course, there will be many challenges, some expected, some unexpected, on the election road." more ›

NYC Comptroller John Liu's hopes of running for mayor in 2013 are being thrown into question as the federal authorities' investigation into his campaign fundraising has resulted in the arrest of one of his fund raisers on fraud charges. Liu said, "I am saddened by what I read today. If it is true, then the conduct was clearly wrong and my campaign was not told the truth." more ›

On the heels of reports that the feds are investigating City Comptroller John Liu's questionable campaign finances, now the NY Times reports a man who has raised money for Liu has been arrested for fraud: "The charges against the man, Xing Wu Pan, do not mention Mr. Liu, but say that Mr. Pan served as a bundler — or person who gathers donations from a group of contributors — for a citywide candidate in New York for the 2013 election. A person briefed on the matter said the candidate was Mr. Liu." more ›

Last month, the NY Times questioned City Comptroller John Liu's fundraising after "[c]anvassing...nearly 100 homes and workplaces of donors listed on Mr. Liu’s campaign finance reports... Some two dozen irregularities were uncovered, including instances in which people listed as having given to Mr. Liu say they never gave, say a boss or other Liu supporter gave for them, or could not be found altogether." Now, the federal authorities are taking a looking at Liu's fundraising. more ›

The Bloomberg administration has spent millions of dollars installing custom-designed GPS tracking units in fire and sanitation trucks over the past several years, but the system is rife with malfunctions, according to audits by city Comptroller John Liu. The GPS system has repeatedly shown fire trucks and sanitation trucks to be in the middle of New York Harbor or sinking in Long Island Sound, when in fact they were still safely on land. The city has spent as much as $56,000 for a single unit in a sanitation truck, and will continue to spend money on what Liu calls "wasted on technology that falls short of what’s promised, raising questions about the oversight of expensive outside consultants." more ›

Mayor Bloomberg and Comptroller Liu, working together? Nope, hell hasn't frozen over—the mortal enemies have teamed up to blow up the city's pension plans so that they can be reborn, phoenix-like, as one giant $120 billion dollar pension fund. Both pols are bullish on the idea, which has union backing, and are hoping Albany will approve it. Basically the idea is by putting the city's funds together with more streamlined management it will be easier for the funds to make money. And, as Bloomberg put it yesterday, "the more investment returns you have, the less that taxpayers have to put in.” more ›

The NY Times has a front-page story on City Comptroller John Liu, the city's highest-ranking Asian (ever) and one of many Democrats eyeing a run for Mayor in 2013. Of course, the Times' article claims that while Liu has raised over $1 million in the first half of 2011, "much about Mr. Liu’s campaign money that does not add up." more ›

For the seventh time in four years Mayor Bloomberg has announced from upon high that city agencies must trim the fat off their books. Just like he did earlier this year, Bloomberg has declared that almost all city agencies need to cut off two percent of their budgets for this fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2012. Crazier, he expects them to trim an additional six percent next year. That should save about $500 million this year and $1.5 billion next year. So maybe now is not the time to quit your job to follow your dream of being a low-level city employee? more ›

Not only did the new study completely ignore the new (more business-friendly and therefore watered-down) version of the Fair Wages For New Yorkers Act, it failed to take into account hard data from actual cities like LA and yes, New York, when calculating the supposed damage done by raising pay. The study "takes place in an unrecognizable New York City where real estate values never rise and 40,000 retail jobs weren't added over the past decade," James Parrott, chief economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute says in a blistering rebuttal [pdf]. more ›

"Mister Comptroller" and foe of Wall Street John Liu believes that President Obama's $447 billion jobs package "if enacted, will deliver significant benefits to New York City's economy." In a release, Liu states that the payroll and Social Security tax cuts cut proposed by the American Jobs Act "would provide a total benefit of $4.8 billion to New York City workers," and would save someone who makes $25K a year $775, and $3,100 for those making $100K. Liu's office makes no mention of Obama's scrapped proposal of "providing a dual Netflix account to every citizen through 2015." more ›

The CityTime scandal gets worse, if you can believe it. Yesterday Comptroller John Liu revealed that the private consultant in charge of the city's money-bleeding computerized timekeeping project was fired yesterday for—wait for it—not properly tracking his hours! Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), the prime contractor on the project, says it will refund $2,470,522 to the city for the time $540,000-a-year senior project manager Gerard Denault billed to Gotham. more ›

The Daily News took a look at some city politicians (and possible 2013 mayoral candidates), and the findings may shock you: Apparently, politicians network at parties. That's right, pols like Comptroller John Liu, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn were all schmoozing during the holiday season in December, but only Liu could walk away with the title "partier-in-chief." more ›

When local elections come around, so do candidates' posters attached to anything and everything. However, since it's illegal to post fliers to city property (think light poles and traffic lights), the city has been cracking down—2009 mayoral candidate Bill Thompson was hit with a $619,000+ fine, Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio got a $300,000+ bill and City Comptroller managed to get out of nearly $550,000 in fines, thanks to a loophole. Well, ladies and gentleman, we have news for you: Mayor Bloomberg thinks that if you do the crime, you pay the fine. more ›

City Comptroller John Liu, who of late has been having a fun time being a thorn in the Bloomberg administration's backside (see CityTime, that 911 contract), did his thing again yesterday when he rejected a $20 million five-year contract to help train and recruit teachers from outside of the education system. “Twenty million dollars to recruit teachers as the DOE insists on laying off thousands of teachers seems curious at best,” he said in a statement. more ›

New York's overbudget consolidated Emergency Communications Transformation Program (ECTP), which brings together police and fire 911 services into one happy package, has had a rough go of it. Indeed, just last month Comptroller John Liu rejected a $286 million contract request for the project citing its soaring budget and lack of organization. So now ECTP is...looking to NASA for help? Oh yes, it most certainly is. more ›

Oh guys, the CityTime mess is even worse than everybody thought! Beyond the whole "the project is massively over budget" issue and the "consultants stole $80 million from the project" problem a recently released audit from accounting firm KPMG now informs us that SAIC, the folks who have installed the $700 million payroll system, have made it is so complex, and left it so poorly documented, that the company they've essentially made it impossible for another operator to take over the finished product without SAIC first producing a whole slew of detailed instructions that currently do not exist. Or, in the words of Comptroller John Liu, "today we learned that it doesn’t even come with a user manual." more ›

The City Time scandal had already been a point of contention between the Bloomberg administration and City Comptroller John Liu, and now their fight has spread to the City's emergency services. Yesterday Liu's office rejected a $286 million contract request for the city's Emergency Communications Transformation Program, (ECTP), an effort to update the city's 911 system—a project that, incidentally, was initially budged at $380 million and has since ballooned to $666 million. more ›

We can now add kickbacks to the list of troubles to strike CityTime, the city's employee time keeping program whose budget went from $63 million to $722 million currently at the center of an $80 million dollar embezzlement scandal. And Mark Mazer, the alleged mastermind who helped fleece the program? Turns out he had a longer criminal history than previously reported. more ›

Just as the city is dealing with a scandal involving four white contractors stealing money from city coffers, Comptroller John Liu has launched a website with some sobering figures about the city's contracts to companies run by women and minorities. Namely how few of them there are. more ›

Back in 2007, the city thought it could save $60 million by installing biometric scanners to keep track of employees' time (CityTime, they called it). But years later the city has spent $722 million extra because the project is, well, a huge mess of bloated salaries to consultants and overruns ("an endless money pit," Comptroller John Liu called it). And now an already embarrassing situation has gotten distinctly worse. Four consultants hired to run quality assurance have been accused of taking $80 million in "an elaborate fraud and kickback scheme" that involved faked time sheets (ha!) and a series of shell companies. According to the suit the suspected ringleader even got his mom and his wife in on the scheme! more ›