Metro

Teamsters take a bank shot at Liu

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City Comptroller John Liu is a Wall Street flunky who’s in bed with big bankers, a withering new attack ad from a municipal union charges.

Teamsters Local 237, which represents housing workers and other city employees and is headed by a mayoral hopeful, has taken to the airwaves to flog Liu for his fund-raising scandal and his proposal to overhaul how the city’s $120 billion pension funds are administered.

“You’ve probably heard an awful lot about New York City Comptroller John Liu and his affairs,” a folksy narrator says on the 60-second spot airing on 1010 WINS and WCBS 880.

“The scandal. The indictment and arrest of his fund-raiser. The federal investigation of his campaign,” the advertisement continues, referring to the October arrest of Liu fund-raiser Xing Wu “Oliver” Pan on federal fraud charges.

“Now we learn that John Liu has a plan to deliver your tax dollars, with limited oversight, to Wall Street bankers.”

It further refers to Wall Street as “the same gang many believe responsible for the worst economy locally and nationally since the Great Depression.”

The ad, scheduled to run for the rest of the month, concludes: “John Liu. He’s all wrong. Remember that Liu wants to give Wall Street bankers your money. On top of everything else.”

At issue, according to union President Gregory Floyd, is Liu’s proposal to turn over the investment management of the five city pension funds to a single nonpolitical board of financial professionals.

There are currently 58 trustees on the five pension boards, appointed by unions and elected officials.

The consolidation to 12 trustees would rob the unions of some oversight they have over investments.

But it would also eliminate the need for multiple consultants for every board, possibly saving hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Floyd, who has been quietly floating himself as a populist 2013 mayoral candidate, sits on the New York City Employee Retirement System board.

He took the helm of the 24,000-member Teamsters Local 237 in 2007.

He stood with Liu and Mayor Bloomberg last month when they announced the reform plan, but Floyd has since accused Liu of being secretive about details of the proposal.

“The facts speak for themselves,” said Liu spokesman Michael Loughran.

“Clearly, the ad is unburdened by the truth.”

But Liu’s first deputy comptroller, Eric Eve, has recently questioned, in public statements, whether the proposal could save the $1 billion to $2 billion a year that Liu and Bloomberg predicted.

The pension overhaul still needs approval from the state Legislature to move forward.

Pension experts had praised the plan for putting more responsibility with financial professionals rather than politicians.

But that plan has taken a back seat now that Liu is embroiled in the ongoing fund-raising scandal.

Liu has seen his own mayoral ambitions suffer a major blow.

He had sought to court the labor vote. But after revelations that he may have used straw donors to bypass campaign-finance regulations, labor leaders have questioned his viability as a candidate.