Bill Thompson

William Colridge Thompson Jr. (born July 10, 1953) is an American politician who served as the 42nd Comptroller of New York City; sworn into office on January 1, 2002, he was reelected to serve a second term that began on January 1, 2006.

In the role of City of New York's chief financial officer, Thompson led a team of 720 employees, managed a $66 million annual operating budget and the country's 5th largest pension fund, a multibillion-dollar fund that was rated among the top 20 in the world.

As New York City Comptroller, Thompson was the custodian and investment advisor to the five boards of trustees of the Five New York City Pension Funds, which included the New York City Employee's Retirement System; the Teachers' Retirement System of the City of New York; the New York City Police Pension Fund; the New York City Fire Department Pension Fund; and the New York City Board of Education Retirement System.

Thompson attended Midwood High School, a public school in Brooklyn, and graduated from Tufts University in 1974.

Upon his graduation from Tufts University in 1974, until 1982, Thompson served as the special assistant and chief of staff to former Brooklyn Democratic Rep. Fred Richmond, who pleaded guilty to income tax evasion, marijuana possession and making an illegal payment to a government employee and who resigned his seat pursuant to a plea agreement in 1982.

Later, Thompson became the youngest Brooklyn Deputy Borough President.

As deputy to Borough President Howard Golden, Thompson was Golden's designee to the New York City Board of Estimate.

Following the Crown Heights riots, Thompson worked to fix the racial divide that had paralyzed Brooklyn.

In 1993, Thompson moved to the private sector for one year, taking a position as senior vice president of the investment firm George K. Baum & Co.

As a member of the New York City Board of Education, from 1994 to 2001, and a five-term president, from 1996 until 2001, Thompson worked for centralized management of the public school system.

Thompson also fought for better after-school programs, improved teacher quality, and an expanded arts curriculum.

While serving the board of education, Thompson also worked as a political consultant, the director of Keyspan Energy (now National Grid USA), and director of a financial firm headed by Michael.

W. Geffrard, a former deputy city comptroller.

Thompson resigned from the board of education in March 2001 to run for the office of Comptroller.

Thompson has also served on the boards of the American Museum of Natural History, Brooklyn Children's Museum, Queens Public Library, New York Wildlife Conservation Society and each New York City Business improvement district.

Thompson worked to diversify the pension portfolio from primarily public equities into private equity, real estate and other asset classes, and since 2003, the funds grew at a pace of 12.33 percent a year, outperforming its actuarial return assumption of 8 percent.

In addition, during Thompson's tenure, assets managed by minority-and-women-owned firms increased from less than $2 billion to over $6 billion.

Thompson called on American firms in the pension portfolio – including Halliburton and General Electric – to document the impact of their businesses on the environment.

He advocated that companies doing business in Northern Ireland embrace the goal of equal opportunity employment and supported efforts to prohibit workplace discrimination based upon sexual orientation.

Since, funds reinvested in New York City, leading to the creation and rehabilitation of more than 20,000 units of affordable housing, the development of thousands of square feet of commercial space, and investments related to creating clean and renewable sources of energy.

In 2003, Thompson led the effort to deposit $200 million in city funds to establish new bank branches in traditionally underserved neighborhoods, enabling more New Yorkers to open checking accounts and apply for business loans and mortgages.

Thompson has developed a number of community service and education programs to help New Yorkers deal with the challenges of the economic crisis.

These programs include consumer banking days (regular events that take place in every borough and feature workshops addressing savings and credit issues), predatory lending reforms and general investment strategies.

In an analysis of Thompson's use of the comptroller's office to audit city government, the on-line journal City Limits opined that "Thompson has not been a ferocious antagonist to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Instead, he has mostly praised the mayor's budgets, smiled on his economic policies and hailed Bloomberg's accomplishments with the city's schools."

However, City Limits reported the Comptroller's office and the Bloomberg administration in fact engaged in hundreds of "low-level skirmishes" over the Comptroller's audits of city agencies and programs, although Thompson did not audited the mayor's office and mayoral agencies as often as his predecessor, Alan Hevesi, under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

City Limits concluded "the jury is still out on the impact Thompson's audits on city services."

He did not seek re-election in 2009.

Instead he ran for mayor, and he was succeeded as comptroller by John Liu.

Thompson ran unsuccessfully in the 2009 election for Mayor of New York as the nominee of the Democratic and Working Families parties, and he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination in the 2013 election for mayor.

Thompson was born and raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.

He is the son of Elaine Thompson, a New York City public-school teacher, and William C. Thompson Sr., formerly a prominent Brooklyn Democratic Party leader, City Councilman, State Senator and judge on New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division.

His grandparents immigrated to New York City from Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean.

Thompson was opposed by Tony Avella, a New York City Councilman from Queens, for the Democratic nomination to run in November 2009 against incumbent mayor Michael Bloomberg.

On September 15, 2009, Thompson overwhelmingly won the Democratic nomination, defeating Avella by 70 points.

On July 9, 2009, Thompson was endorsed by the Working Families Party.

On July 21, 2009, the Comptroller's office released a report suggesting the Bloomberg administration had falsely inflated graduation rates in city schools.

Thompson's report did not demonstrate any conclusive evidence of manipulation, "saying only that a lack of oversight, coupled with intense pressure to push up the graduation rate, created the potential for abuse."

Thompson also criticized Bloomberg's managerial style as creating incentives for schools to graduate unqualified students.

The New York City Department of Education released a 38-page rebuttal to Thompson's allegations.

On June 15, 2016, Thompson was appointed by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo as chairman of the board of trustees of The City University of New York; his term ended in June 2022.