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One of the prime contractors selected to improve the city’s 911 call system overbilled taxpayers by as much as $163 million because of “severe mismanagement,” according to an audit by City Comptroller John Liu released Wednesday.

Less wealthy, more racially diverse: That's the donor profile for elections in New York City, where a system of matching small campaign donations with public funds allows minorities and lower-income individuals greater influence than in state elections without a similar system, according to a new study.

New York City Comptroller John Liu outlined a proposal to accelerate spending on the city's capital budget for 2013 and 2014 by $2 billion on Wednesday.

Comptroller John Liu further complicated the city’s Taxi of Tomorrow project on Wednesday by saying he wouldn’t approve the city’s contract with Nissan because the vehicle selected isn’t wheelchair accessible.

The lawyer for New York City Comptroller John Liu says his client may seek to be tried separately from her codefendant.

Federal prosecutors have brought a new criminal charge against the former campaign treasurer for New York City Comptroller John Liu. The government charged Jia Hou with making false statements to the FBI.

The Staten Island Ferry is free to passengers, but engine problems with three of the fleet’s seven boats are costing the city millions. And that’s causing a showdown between the city Department of Transportation and Comptroller John Liu.

Assemblywoman Grace Meng got the unified endorsement of four probable 2013 mayoral candidates - Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Comptroller John Liu, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and former comptroller Bill Thompson - for her Congressional campaign.

An audit by the New York City comptroller has found flaws in the city's system for determining property values.

More than 20 people, including City Council members, half a dozen labor leaders, representatives from Housing Development and Preservation, the Consul General of Mexico in New York, an unpaid Mexican building worker, a representative from the immigrant advocate group Make The Road, and several other Comptroller office staffers filed in behind a podium, flanking Comptroller Liu on both sides.

City Comptroller John Liu announced a $1.2 million settlement on behalf of building workers from four city sites and called on those workers to come forward to collect their unpaid wages.

Councilman Daniel Garodnick has announced his candidacy to replace embattled New York City Comptroller John Liu.

Embattled New York City Comptroller John Liu has a new campaign treasurer.

Colby Hamilton / WNYC

For a while, the conversation around pensions has primarily been focused on the cost and risk public pensions present to their fiscal backstops, the taxpayers. During this year’s budget negotiations Governor Andrew Cuomo pushed for changes to the system for future public employees. They were needed, he said, because New York’s state and local governments could not afford the system as-is. He was at least partially successful.

Now, the man in charge of the city’s pension system, Comptroller John Liu, wants to change the focus on pensions, from the debate over their sustainability to a wider discussion about retirement security, and the positive role public pension funds could play.

On Monday, Liu joined Dr. Teresa Ghilarducci, director of the New School’s Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, to promote an idea they say could help the 60 percent or so of New Yorkers currently without a retirement plan by allowing them to buy into the public pension system.

The Bloomberg administration's re-design of the city's 911 emergency call system is $1 billion over-budget and seven years behind schedule, according to a comprehensive audit of the project by City Comptroller John Liu.

It has become a piece of generally held wisdom in New York political circles: City Comptroller John Liu has lost any shot of becoming mayor in 2013 amid a federal investigation into his fundraising practices that has led to two arrests.

A new Quinnipiac University poll is out and you know what that means: a new 2013 mayoral candidate question.

According to the poll, Council Cpeaker Christine Quinn continues to be the favorite of those polled, with 25 percent saying if they had to pick a candidate today, she'd be it.

Before we get to the rest of the numbers, it's worth noting two things about the poll. One, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was not included as a potential candidate, unlike previous Quinnipiac surveys. And two, the continued troubles Comptroller John Liu has had over his campaign's fundraising practices.

Given both those, who appears to win from both situation? Former Comptroller Bill Thompson, followed by Speaker Quinn. Let's take a look at this poll's numbers, side-by-side the last poll in December.

To be fair, everyone did a little bit better. It will be interesting to see what the numbers look like when they drop Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz's name from the list.

Also in the poll voters were asked if they believed Comptroller Liu should resign. A plurality--44 percent--said no, even as the number that said yes climbed significantly to 33 percent.

“Who should move into City Hall when Mayor Bloomberg moves out? Council Speaker Christine Quinn tops the list of usual suspects and has an impressive job approval,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in a statement. “After the drum-beat of negative news, Comptroller John Liu’s job approval numbers are tepid, but New Yorkers don’t think he should quit.”

The poll surveyed 964 New York City voters between March 6 and 11. Its margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. Both land lines and cell phones were used.

A cloud has been over City Comptroller John Liu's since his campaign treasurer was arrested over a week ago. His current problems may be undermining his image as the city's chief fiscal watchdog, and leading to weaker support from unions.

Attempting to divert attention from his ballooning campaign finance scandal, City Comptroller John Liu refused to say Monday whether the treasurer arrested for her alleged involvement in a federal corruption case was still employed by his campaign.

Embattled New York City Comptroller John Liu announced this morning that the city's pension funds had worked with two companies they invest in to agree to protect workers against sexual orientation and identity discrimination. Like his counterpart at the state level, Comptroller Tomas DiNapoli, Liu is using the city's public pension funds to push forward a political agenda--one of the benefits defenders of the pension systems point to for protecting them.

The companies in the agreement, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Constellation Brands, a large alcoholic beverage distributor, will now not have to put a proposal forward to shareholders to "adopt a written policy barring discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity," according to the report.

“These companies are to be commended for upholding basic rights of their employees,” Comptroller Liu said in a statement.  “As long-term shareholders we know that when companies refuse to protect their employees against discrimination, they drive away the best and the brightest. Equal rights in the workplace help ensure that long-term shareholder value is protected and build a more equitable society.”

Last month, Comptroller DiNapoli announced an agreement with three California-based companies to disclose their corporate political contributions. DiNapoli, in an interview with the Empire in January, DiNapoli pointed to the ability of pension funds as vehicles for social change as one of their additional benefits:

“By aggregating that capital, we can not only maximize the power to get superior return,” the Comptroller said. “You also can focus on the other ways in which you can make those companies you invest in be responsible corporate citizens in a way that makes their business model sustainable and profitable.”