LGBTQ+ Equality

+ Auditing for Equity

Brad believes that a critical job of the Comptroller should be “accounting for our values.” Brad therefore plans to create teams within the office’s Audit Bureau (the largest division of the Comptroller’s office) to conduct audits focused on equity, sustainability, and accessibility. The “Equity Audit” Team will investigate, identify, and make proposals to reduce disparities across race, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity citywide, including in how our city agencies deliver services, treat their workers, and hire contractors. Equity Audits will investigate agencies that harm or fail to serve LGBTQ+ New Yorkers.

The Equity Audits team will audit the City’s budget to root out disparities in the provision of social services, such as the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) performance on its placement of LGBTQ+ youth in affirming and inclusive homes and the treatment of LGBTQ+ youth in Department of Homeless Services shelter system. In the area of public safety, they will begin with the Vice Squad, which has been shown to target transgender New Yorkers of color, possibly in violation of New York City’s law against bias-based profiling (which Brad sponsored along with Public Advocate Jumaane Williams in 2013). Equity auditing will also help ensure our taxpayer dollars are going towards LGBTQ+ and sex-work-affirming organizations.

+ Lending a Voice, and a Financial Argument to Important Policy Issues Impacting the LGBTQ+ Community

As comptroller, Brad will add his voice and analysis to the ongoing fights for Medicare for All and the New York Health Act at the federal and state level by publishing policy papers outlining the disparities in access to healthcare across class, race, and gender lines. Brad will also use the tools of the Comptroller’s officer to help make the case for decriminalizing sex work by assessing and publishing the costs of criminalizing sex work to our city and state, including the operational costs of the human trafficking intervention courts.

+ Proposing an Ethical Budget for New York City

Brad voted no on the FY21 budget because it was not responsive to demands to reduce the NYPD budget by at least $1 billion, invest that funding in underinvested communities in education, youth, and social services, and begin to transform our approach to public safety away from a system with policing at its center. As Comptroller, Brad will assess the City’s proposed budgets and make recommendations to move away from having policing as the primary response for every problem, from homelessness to mental health to gender-based violence to traffic safety, and, instead move closer to a budget that reflects our values and actually keeps all communities safe.

+ End Interminable Contracting Delays for LGBTQ+ (and other) Nonprofit Groups

Nonprofits that organize, serve, and are led by LGBTQ+ New Yorkers provide essential human services, in many cases contracted directly by the City of New York to provide health care, outreach, and a wide array of community programming. Yet when City agencies contract for this work, they are chronically underfunded -- not paid enough to provide their human service workers with good pay and benefits, or for organizational stability -- and often paid months or even years late. City Hall recently reneged on an agreement to increase the “indirect cost rate” to cover more of the full cost of their work, and has failed to reduce contracting delays. Brad is a co-sponsor of Intro 1627-2019 which would require the City to provide transparency into the contracting process, from RFP to contract registration, a process that is now shrouded in secrecy. As Comptroller Brad will focus aggressively on improving the human service contacting process and fairly valuing and increasing the indirect cost rate, so nonprofit human service providers can achieve organizational stability, pay their workers fairly, and support LGBTQ+ and all communities.

+ Help LGBTQ+ Nonprofit Groups Secure and Build Affordable Office Space and Community Centers

LGBTQ+ nonprofit institutions play a critical role in our neighborhoods, providing programs for health, wellness, organizing, arts and culture, community connections, and so much more. But too often, these nonprofit institutions struggle to keep their heads above water in the face of rising rents and displacement pressures. Even where nonprofits own their own space, tight budgets and barriers to accessing capital often force these institutions into spaces that are far too small or in desperate need of renovation. The City’s capital budget process is extremely cumbersome, making it nearly impossible for smaller LGBTQ+ nonprofits to compete for funds, let alone navigate the City’s complex and bureaucratic capital contracting and construction process.

In order to effectively support NYC’s LGBTQ+ communities, the City should set up a dedicated capital fund for the express purpose of helping these small LGBTQ+ nonprofits acquire, renovate, and expand administrative and community spaces citywide. This fund could be administered with a partner like the Fund for the City of New York or a City agency like the Economic Development Corporation which have the expertise and capacity to help these small non-profits access and use City capital dollars. This fund would better enable these critical institutions to renovate their spaces, expand their footprints, and maximize their impact in neighborhoods all across the City.

+ Co-governing Alongside LGBTQ+ Advocacy Groups

Brad is a firm believer in co-governance, the practice of building participatory structures that link community organizing and civic participation with governing, from “inside/outside” issue campaigns, to policy implementation, to agency auditing. He has worked to model those ideas in a wide range of issue campaigns (the Community Safety Act, paid sick leave, fair work week, certificate of no harassment, reckless driving, gig-worker policy), in bringing participatory budgeting to NYC, and in helping to launch organizations including the City Council’s Progressive Caucus, GetOrganizedBK, and Local Progress. As Comptroller, Brad will continue to innovate in civic participation, with a particular focus on engaging our most marginalized communities, who are most in need of City agency services, but the least likely to have their voices heard.