This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

The former bursar at the City College of New York received no jail time after admitting to stealing $500,000 from students and spending it on luxury goods and vacations under the terms of a plea deal, according to court documents. Instead, he’s on probation for five years while paying back the money. Talk about an expensive, but sweet get-out-of-jail pass.

 New  York City Comptroller Brad Lander didn’t file a document – but unlike the last time, he did it on purpose. The city’s chief fiscal officer declining to register the city’s proposed Medicare Advantage Plan contract is a morale booster for Marianne Pizzitola and the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees where she serves as president. The pensioners have briefly stepped away from golf and shuffleboard to protest the still-under-litigation health care plan that thousands of retirees have rejected.

Economists hate rent control. But New Yorkers – especially those paying $92 a month in the West Village since 1967 – love it. So let’s spare the debate for a second and nod to the first ever law signed by Mayor Eric Adams, legislation sponsored by new West Bronx City Council Member Pierina Sanchez that effectively helps keep the city’s rent stabilization regime in effect. The urban planner-turned-elected’s next target: bad landlords. 

The state budget is still being finalized, but it seems likely that New York City Mayor Eric Adams will lose out on two of his big budget asks from Albany – mayoral control of schools and renewing the 421-a tax program. It’s a poor showing in the mayor’s first term, but there’s still time later in the state legislative session for him to secure these priorities. But Adams might have to up his visits to Albany – not Miami – to get what he wants from state lawmakers.

New role, new (fiscal) year, same scandals. The lieutenant governor has tried to keep his distance from the alleged straw donor scheme that fueled his comptroller campaign, saying he had nothing to do with it. Now, the FBI is investigating to make sure that’s actually the case by issuing subpoenas to state officials and state Senate employees. Apropos of nothing, the LG and the governor run in separate primaries. 

Gov. Kathy Hochul might’ve thought she had a clever way to deflect criticism about sending $600 million in taxpayer money to help the billionaire owners of the Buffalo Bills build a new stadium. Why not use money from a nine-figure settlement with the Seneca Nation over gambling revenues. Her fiscal headaches only got worse after a tribal leader linked her approach to the centuries-long exploitation of Indigenous people. And where’s that on-time budget, governor?