City’s Top Officials Make Annual Financial Disclosures
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The City Comptroller owes up to $35,000 in credit card debt, the Speaker of the City Council owns a 4-bedroom home in Ocean Grove, N.J., that cost at least half a million dollars, and the Public Advocate is the second-most wealthy top public official, coming in behind Mayor Bloomberg.
Financial information about the city’s top four office holders was disclosed this morning by the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, an annual report that gives New Yorkers insight into the investments, properties, and debt owed by their elected officials.
The Public Advocate, Betsy Gotbaum, appears to have made an effort to shield the public from the details of her investment portfolio, after last year’s filing resulted in published reports focusing on her investments in oil companies, a company that manufactures cigarettes, and pharmaceutical companies. Ms. Gotbaum’s position is designed to give regular New Yorkers a voice in city government.
Unlike last year, today’s report named only one company where Ms. Gotbaum holds stock – Research In Motion, a wireless communications company – and states that she has invested her money in mutual fund and stock portfolios managed by Bertstein, a global wealth management firm.
A spokeswoman for Ms. Gotbaum, Sarah Krauss, said the public advocate asked the Conflicts of Interest Board if she could change the way she listed her holdings, and it agreed that she did not have to list the individual securities. Ms. Krauss said she couldn’t comment on why that request had been made.
Ms. Gotbaum also has shed some assets. In 2007, her assets totaled between $470,000 and $1.3 million, according to today’s report. The previous year, she reported assets of between $699,000 and $2.4 million.
Mr. Thompson, a likely candidate for mayor, carried over his American Express credit card debt from 2006 to 2007, but added a new source of income to his portfolio from a tenant who rented space in his home and paid him between $5,000 and $35,000 last year.
City officials are not required to report the exact amount of income they earn from an outside job or have in assets, but rather can report a range of value, the highest of which is a category that includes everything totaling more than $500,000.
State Legislators also fill out financial disclosure reports, but when the filings are made public the range amounts are redacted. Advocacy groups are calling on the state to overhaul its practice of self-regulation when it comes to ethics rules so that, at the very least, state lawmakers are held to the same standard as city officials when it comes to financial disclosure requirements.
Mr. Bloomberg, who is worth about $20 billion, released his financial disclosure report and tax returns for 2007 on his own last month.