Dear New Yorkers,

This Spring, I’ve had the chance to visit three great schools in the Bronx:

Samara Community School, where the 5th graders led a “participatory budgeting” effort for their whole school, in which they selected new playground equipment.

Cardinal Hayes High School, where the stars of their state champion football team were taking an amazing financial literacy class, complete with Bloomberg terminals, learning about how markets work.

And CUNY’s Lehman College, where I met students from their newly launched business school, who we’re helping to gain access to internships at some of the city’s great financial institutions.

At each school, I was struck by the connections between personal financial literacy (how people learn to manage their own finances) and public financial literacy (how we work together to manage taxpayer dollars and public institutions).

April is “Financial Literacy Month” – then again, of course, every month is financial literacy month at the Comptroller’s office :-) 

Financial literacy is “the ability to use knowledge and skills to manage one's financial resources effectively for long-term financial security.” On the public side, that’s exactly the hard work you are doing every day: Using your knowledge and skills to manage New York City’s resources effectively for the City’s long-term financial security.

And part of my job as Comptroller – as a democratic steward of those resources – is to help everyday New Yorkers to understand and participate in that work. That’s why we publish the Popular Annual Financial Report (in addition to the ACFR), put out a great monthly economic newsletter that breaks down fiscal topics (check out this month’s great spotlight on CUNY), and launched the NYCHA Resident Audit Committee.

On the personal side, we recently released a powerful report on the racial wealth gap, showing how inequities in wealth, homeownership, student debt, and retirement savings exacerbate inequality. That’s why we’re working so hard to strengthen the City’s M/WBE programs, expand access to emerging and M/WBE investment managers, and run our Homes Now, Homes for Generations campaign. Helping New Yorkers build financial literacy and financial assets is critical to our city’s shared economic future.

In elementary school, high school, college, throughout their careers, and of course right through their retirements, New Yorkers rely on the work we do here every day. I couldn't be more proud.

Brad 

P.S. To kick off Spring on a high note, the agency launched an agency-wide spring cleaning initiative. It was all hands-on deck as we tidied up our workspaces. A special thank you to our facilities team for hauling out over 800 bags of trash!